Not Exactly Funny

Not Exactly Funny
by Helen
"There should be shit like this in the Olympics," Blair said, wiping his nose on his sleeve. Jim hunched his shoulders in his jacket and didn't bother to answer. "I mean," Blair continued, "forget all this bullshit with lycra and special shoes and optimum conditions, they need to make athletes do all that running and jumping shit after staying up half the night. In rotten weather. In alleys. With potholes." He'd twisted his ankle earlier. "How much longer d'you think?"
"Not long," Jim said. His lungs hurt; he had thought he'd begun to recover from his cold, but now he wasn't so sure. He had an ugly rattling cough and the end of his nose was chapped. He'd been doing much better before he'd had to spend three days doing surveillance on the roof of a building.
"Next time," Blair said, "Let's try to schedule heavy mob surveillance for some time when everyone else isn't trying to solve a double homicide and having a twelve hour standoff at the A and P." He was scratching the edge of his tongue against the back of his mouth, making a slight clicking sound. He had caught the cold from Jim, no doubt from eating greasy Chinese food out of the same container.
"I'll keep that in mind."
Jim coughed.
"You wanna cough drop?" Blair said, fumbling in his pocket.
"What kind?"
"I think they got eucalyptus in them."
"They aren't those all natural ones."
"No."
"I can't have those, you know."
"Yeah, I know. I was there when you had freaky hallucinations for six or seven hours."
"That homeopathic shit is scary, Sandburg. It's not FDA regulated."
"They're like Halls or something, okay? Nothin' but good old American corn syrup and yellow dye number 5."
"Right. well. give me one, then."
"Here." Blair handed him two.
"uch, they're all sticky, Sandburg."
"Well, I'm sorry, it's wet out here. I'm damp. Every piece of me is damp, I'm turning into a lichen breeding ground."
"Well, you didn't have to come."
"Yeah, well—"
"Wait, wait. That's him," Jim said, and swung the camera around his neck up and pointed it down at a window below them.
They were at the far end of the roof, staring down. Blair heard it first, the rattle of the iron door opening, four men, guns, of course, advanced towards them and instead of doing anything useful while Jim carefully put his gun on the ground and kicked it away, he said,
"But why didn't you hear,"
"Sinuses," Jim said, mumbled, actually, and one of the men yanked the camera from around his neck and threw it over the side of the building, and, seemingly pleased with the heavy black arc it made in the late February sky, motioned Blair after it.
"What?"
"Jump."
"but—okay," he said, as a bullet flew past his shoulder. It seemed amazing that he could make himself do it; he took one hesitant step backwards—there was no ledge but immediately before he stepped out he saw that the window below him had a thick outcropping. He jumped and hit the ledge, already in the air as he saw Jim do something impossible, move in two directions at once, punch one man who'd gotten too close and scoop up his gun, shoot two, and jam his thumb in the eye of the third, not, unfortunately, before losing his balance and falling down, hitting the ledge that Blair was on, pushing Blair off, leaving him grasping the cool cement.
"Shit, Blair, hold on," Jim said and grabbed his wrists. They hung there, for a minute, Blair thinking, wow, looking vaguely around for something witty to say, before he remembered his ledge, remembered that it wasn't wide enough, that Jim had no way to pull him up,
"You can't pull me up," he said.
"Blair,"
"What are you, what are you doing," Blair said, toes scrabbling at the concrete.
"Blair,"
"Let me go, you asshole, you'll fall," Blair shouted.
"I won't."
"You stubborn bastard," Blair grunted, digging his fingernails painfully into Jim's wrists, "I wish I'd never met you."
Jim bit his lip and gripped Blair's wrists tighter and he could see down over Blair's shoulder and it was a long way and Blair was twisting his wrists and they were slipping and he was going to fall, they were both going to fall there was nothing he could do about it, Jesus, Sandburg, it wasn't fair, he wished they'd never met, so Sandburg would be holed up safely in his office, reading and not falling.
" ow," Blair said.
"You got that right." Jim sat up and looked with concern at Blair who was struggling into a sitting position. He had eggshells in his hair. "you all right?"
"I guess. I mean, a dumpster full of offal isn't my first choice for a family vacation or anything, but."
"ha ha."
"I don't have much to work with here."
"You're bleeding," Jim said,
"What?"
"arm." Blair looked down at his arm curiously and saw a long gash there, rendered neatly by the inside jagged edge of the dumpster.
"Oh it's. yes. well that would be the shock, right there." He pulled down his sleeve.
"it's pretty nasty. Might need stitches."
"I'm Blair Sandburg, by the way," Blair said.
"Jim Ellison." Jim put out his hand and Blair shook it with his left, making a small motion with his injured right arm.
"Nice to meet you."
Jim gave him a tight smile and stood up, walked gingerly across the garbage to the edge of the dumpster and climbed out. Blair dropped neatly to the ground behind him.
"Sorry you had to be involved in that," Jim said.
"Well. Wrong place, wrong time." Blair shrugged.
"Yeah." Jim said and they stood there for a few more minutes squinting up at the ledge before Jim said,
"Look, Mr. Sandburg, I don't want to be abrupt or anything but I sorta—those guys on the roof."
"No no, I gotcha, duty calls."
"Can I get your number?"
"Um." Blair said faintly. "Oh. for. A statement or something."
"yeah."
"You want home or work?"
"Go ahead and give me both.'
"All right." Blair fished a grubby card and a pen out of his pocket and wrote quickly. "Home phone number on the back," he said, handing it to Jim, who glanced cursorily at the front and said,
"You a professor?"
"Not quite."
"Right. well. we probably won't need to call you. I don't know," Jim shrugged.
"I'll see you, then. I mean. I probably. won't see you. But you know."
"Right." Jim said, and disappeared around the corner. Blair realized he had a headache. Realized that he couldn't remember where he'd parked his car. He did, unfortunately, remember that he had midterms to grade, and that they were in his office. He took the bus across town, spent part of the afternoon grading papers, and the other part waiting on the technical support hotline for his computer. They were no help. When it came time to go home, found himself facing his car in its usual parking spot. He shrugged, and drove home.
Blair opened the door to a gun in his face. This seemed, for some reason, oddly familiar, but he shrugged it away, couldn't concentrate on it, of course, given the gun in his face that was held by Jim Ellison.
"Whoa," he said and backed up a step.
"Sorry," Jim said, dropping the gun away. "What're you. You have a key?"
"I live here."
"No." Jim looked at him suspiciously. "I live here." He backed up a step, though, put his gun back in the shoulder holster hung on the hooks by the door and Blair stepped across the threshold and said
"You know what? I've had a really shitty day. I fell off a building. I can't remember the encryption codes for what looks to be about eighty-seven percent of my work. And what I don't need is some cop telling me I don't live in my apartment. Here's my driver's license," he said, snatching it out of his wallet and slapping it into Jim's hand.
"But you don't live here," Jim said again, ignoring the 852 Prospect address on the card.
"Oh," Blair said, now infuriated, shoving past him and ripping open the door to the downstairs room. "So what you're saying is that this is your Reuniquei River Valley Dig '92 t-shirt. And your pants with the thirty-two inch inseam. And your book on Etruscan textiles." He waved the items in quick succession and then threw them back on his bed. "Not to mention," he continued, coming out of the room, "your Best American Short Stories 1997," picking the volume off the end table and flapping it accusatorily at Jim.
"I use that room for storage," Jim said, peering in the door in confusion. "And that is my book," he said, snatching it back. They looked at each other for a minute and then looked past each other at the things in they realized weren't theirs.
"Gee." Blair finally said, "You think we have amnesia?"
Jim grinned in spite of himself. "Good call."
"What's the last thing you remember?" Blair asked.
"I remember everything fine. I just don't. remember you."
"huh," Blair said. He didn't look offended.
"But you clearly live here, so—" Jim stopped as Blair ran a tired hand through his hair and pushed up his sleeves revealing the raw angry cut "Christ, Sandburg, did you even, what did you do to this?" he caught the wrist before Blair could snatch it away.
"I, you know, washed it out."
"Where? In a gas station bathroom? I mean, what, are you trying for gangrene?"
"You've gotta relax," Blair said lightly. Jim frowned at him and dropped his arm.
"We're going to the hospital right now."
"But—"
"What possible objection can you have here? You need stitches, we both have some sort of memory loss—"
"But I remembered a whole lot this afternoon," Blair protested.
"Yeah, like what?" Jim yanked his jacket off the hook.
"Like, that I'm a police observer."
"You're a police observer."
"Yes. I'm writing a thesis on closed societies."
"You remembered that?"
"Well. I. The notes seemed familiar," Blair said, averting his eyes.
"There any reason you don't like hospitals," Jim asked, pulling onto the highway.
"No. I just. I don't really have health insurance," Blair mumbled.
"You do know that's stupid, right?"
"I don't know where you get off with this overbearing crap."
"Well, I'm gonna end up paying for it."
"Forget it. I'll just—"
"What? Wait in the parking lot and get blood poisoning? You're my roommate. I assume I like you, so I'll pay."
"Don't do me any favors," Blair said testily, but when Jim parked, he got out of the truck and followed him in the emergency room door.
"Blair, Mr. Ellison," the receptionist smiled at them. When neither of them answered right away, the smile dropped and she said, "er. are you here on business?"
"No." He crooked his finger towards Blair and said, "He need stitches and. uh" he stopped, but she didn't notice because she was too busy finding pens and clipboards for them. "You know the drill," she said, "Insurance info on the bottom there."
"Um." Blair said.
Jim took the clipboard out of her hand and said "Sandburg doesn't have insurance, so I'll be—"
"What? But sure you do," she said and leaned over the counter, "Blue Cross, you keep the card behind your driver's license, you showed it to me when you got it."
"What?" Blair scrabbled in his wallet and produced a crumpled Blue Cross card. "What do you know," he said weakly.
"Did you even hit your head?" the doctor asked Jim.
"No."
"Not that you remember or no?" He tilted Jim's head up and shone a light into his eyes.
"There's no difference between those," Jim said.
"And you remember everything else."
"How should I know that? Maybe there's an entire army of people walking around claiming to live in my apartment."
"Are you sure he lives in your apartment?"
"It seems pretty obvious that he does. And that we know each other. There are pictures and things. And the receptionist knew us. She called him Blair."
"That's his name."
"I know that. But she called me Mr. Ellison."
"hm. Mr. Sandburg has spent a not inconsiderable amount of time here with injuries sustained on the job." The doctor flipped through one of the charts on his desk.
"He's an observer; what'd he have—eye strain?"
"Couple of bullet wounds. Broken wrist."
"oh."
"Let's get back to the matter at hand—you've seen other people today that you knew?"
"Yeah. The guys in lockup. Another detective."
"Everything normal there?"
"Yup."
The doctor leaned back against his desk and sighed.
"As far as I can tell, given that there's no visible head trauma whatsoever, and that you both are perfectly lucid, it's psychological. I could do a CT scan, but it's extremely unlikely that there would be a neurological basis for forgetting one person. And falling several stories: Well. I'd say there's cause there."
"Psychological," Jim said.
"yes."
"So will I remember?"
"Almost definitely. Most people recover full memory."
"Most."
"Your chances are excellent—the traumatic event was. not all that traumatic. comparatively, you know?"
"How long."
"That's hard to say. A few days, a few months—every case is different. Just try to keep to normal routine—jog your memory. And, um, don't let people fill you in too much—you should remember in your own time."
"Great."
"Look. Go home. Get some sleep. It's entirely possible that you'll be back to normal tomorrow morning."
"Well there's an example of lousy ass managed care," Blair said in the parking lot.
"What, they didn't give you enough Codeine," Jim said.
"No, man, the fact that we both have memory loss and they just sent us home. What's that?"
"They said there's nothing they can do. They said we'd remember soon."
"That's not really what they said."
"Do you need a prescription filled?"
"No."
"You sure?"
"yeah, I'm sure, it's a cut in my arm, it's no big deal."
"Fine." Jim turned on the engine and drove out of the parking lot.
"Okay. So you're Jim Ellison and you're a detective and um. what?" Blair said. "I'm just trying to get a little basic information here—Colonel Mustard in the library with a candlestick sort of stuff. I'm Blair Sandburg. I'm an anthropologist and specializing in tribal structures. I have health insurance. I like applesauce cake."
"If I never hear another Clue joke, it will be too soon," Jim announced.
"You get a lot of that," Blair said.
"Yup."
It was just past midnight when they got home. They yawned to each other and Jim went to brush his teeth, coming back out again, toothbrush in hand, at the muffled thumps coming from the downstairs room.
"What the hell are you doing?"
"Just trying to clear off my bed," Blair said, shoving the last few books onto the floor. "That better be your toothbrush."
"It's my toothbrush."
"How do you know?"
"Because the bristles aren't all mashed around."
"Fine," Blair said, stifling a yawn.
"Goodnight then," Jim said after a pause.
"goodnight. Thanks for. The hospital, you know."
"It was on my way," Jim said.
"I mean. You would've paid for this," Blair said, touching the edge of the bandage on his arm.
"Well, that's my standard policy on guys who suddenly appear to be living in my apartment," Jim said after a self-conscious pause. Blair grinned.
"Hey, I'll see you tomorrow. Maybe I'll know you tomorrow."
"Maybe," Jim said, and turned away.
Blair was sitting at the table munching toast and reading a notebook when he came down the stairs.
"Morning," Blair said.
"Morning," he said. Sighed, sat down. It had taken him some minutes after he'd woken up, assisted by the minor bustle of someone making coffee and jiggling at the toaster controls, to remember Blair at all. He'd had a few confusing seconds of wondering if the whole thing were a dream. It had that dreamlike quality—too many places in one day, roof and dumpster, apartment and hospital, that strained dream not-quite-right feeling, but no, it was real, there was some guy downstairs whom he apparently knew, whom he'd apparently allowed to move in, get comfortable enough to strew his crap all over.
He'd had a relentlessly optimistic second grade teacher, who, just prior to the pledge of allegiance, would tell them to get up and face the new day. Even at eight, sitting in an oatmeal induced stupor, calculating the minutes until recess, hoping he wasn't going to be required to read aloud, he'd understood that her chipper affirmations were supposed to be inspiring. They only came back to him on days when facing the day seemed quite unappealing. Still. She had a point. He had put on jeans and a t-shirt and gone downstairs.
"Remember anything?" Blair asked.
"Nope."
"yeah, me either." There was an uncomfortable silence and then Blair said "You want some eggs?"
"You think you normally make me breakfast?"
"Don't know. I'm sort of. a breakfast makin' kind of guy."
"Okay, then," Jim said, watching as Blair dug around in the refrigerator. They were good eggs.
"I thought, it's Sunday," Blair said as he ate, "and maybe we could hang out some and try to. you know."
"okay. What's that," he asked, pointing at the notebook.
"Oh, some thesis notes—hard copy, so I can read it at least."
Jim went to dump a load of laundry in the wash and when he came back, Blair was standing in front of a picture on the wall near the staircase. It was of him and Simon and Blair. Simon was holding a fish and all three of them were grinning broadly. He had a sunburn.
"Who's that?" Blair asked, pointing at Simon.
"Simon. Banks. He's the head of Major Crimes. Where I work," he tacked on.
"I should know him," Blair said. "Shit."
"well," he said.
"Shit," Blair said again, this time more vehemently.
"Maybe you shouldn't be getting so worked up," he said. "It's only been a day."
"Yeah," Blair said, "that's easy for you to say, I'm the only thing you don't goddamn remember—you didn't forget your whole fucking job."
"What? You don't remember, the, um, entomology?"
"Anthropology. And yes, I remember it. But. I'm supposed to be doing my dissertation on the police station and I can't remember a fucking thing."
"When's it due?"
"There's no due date per se,"
"Then what are you worried about?"
Blair smacked his forehead. "Of course, it's not due so why worry? Why didn't I think of that?" He shook his head. "I cannot believe we're friends. What, just, how can you not understand the gravity of the situation?"
"I understand the gravity of the situation just fine, thanks, but this Scarlett O'Hara act isn't going to help any."
"What the hell do you know about Scarlett O'Hara?"
"She was always pitching a fit about some damn thing, wasn't she? Jesus Christ, you haven't stopped caterwauling since you got here—"
"That's because the stoic macho guy quota's already been filled," Blair glared at him reproachfully. "And you can stop looking at me like you wanna make me do pushups, okay?"
"You know, I'm assuming there's a good reason I let you move in here."
"I'm sure there was."
"I have no idea what it might be," Jim said grimly.
"Me either," Blair agreed. Jim sighed and went to stare out the window.
"Sorry I called you Scarlett O'Hara," he said finally.
"Sorry I caterwauled," Blair said, somewhere behind him.
"So. Are you gonna be able to teach your classes?"
"Yeah, don't see why not. What are you going to do?"
"Tell Simon. Then, we'll see."
"So. Are we gonna hang out?"
"I guess," Jim shrugged.
"What do you do in your spare time?"
"You mean other than pushups."
"Yeah."
" I don't know. Don't have a lot of free time. I like to go camping."
"Hey, me too," Blair said, giving him a bright grin.
"And worlds collide."
"Not that I don't appreciate dry wit, but—"
"sorry, sorry."
They washed the breakfast dishes in not quite uneasy silence. Jim went and put his laundry in the dryer and came back to find Blair staring balefully at his arm.
"How's the arm?" he said.
"Itchy."
"That's good. Mean's it's healing."
Blair shook his head. "I think that's a lie they tell you—I mean, it could mean it was about to fall off."
"Better itchy than painful."
"I don't know. It itches." Blair got up and went in the kitchen. "First aid kit?"
"You gotta change the dressing on it?" Jim said, finding it in the cabinet.
"Yeah."
"I'll do it for you."
"You don't have to. It's pretty gross."
"And I have such a delicate constitution."
"Fine, then, have at it," Blair said, unwrapping the outer bandage. There were gauze strips on top of the wound, soaked through with blood and moisture from the wound. "It got a little squishy under there," Blair said.
"Stop being so squeamish," Jim said, pulling the strips off. "Hurt?" he asked.
"I told you, it's itchy."
Jim put a gentle finger on the outside of the cut and stroked quickly at the skin just outside the reddened swollen area of the wound. He wasn't using the nail, just the pad of his finger. Blair made a small sound of relief and leaned back against the sink. Jim worked his way carefully along the sides of the cut, scrubbing lightly at the skin.
"okay?" he said finally.
"yeah," Blair said, "that was really. It feels a lot better. Thanks." Jim rewrapped his arm. "Where'd you learn to do that?"
"I was in Peru for almost two years," Jim said. "If you scratch the bug bites like you want to, you break the skin and it doesn't really help the itching anyway."
"Why were you in Peru?" Blair said curiously.
"It was when I was with the Rangers."
"oh. Was that, uh."
"I don't. um—" He frowned at the sink .
"hey, I gotcha," Blair said easily.

Blair wandered around and poked at the bookshelves and looked out the window and threw himself on the couch and fidgeted and Jim was just about to say something when Blair said,
"Let's go do something."
"Like what?"
"I don't know. Let's just, go someplace. Being here is freaking me out. Like I obviously do live here, but. you know."
"yeah."
"But I guess by the same token, my being here would be freaking you out," Blair said thoughtfully. "So maybe I should just clear out for a while."
"No. I don't think that's—I think we're supposed to be trying to remember each other. So we should go do something we normally do."
"We have yet to establish anything we normally do."
"A flaw, I'll admit."
"Let's. go for a walk. Get some lunch or something," Blair suggested.
"Okay. Let's go to the hardware store."
"Fine."
"The drawers in the kitchen aren't rolling smoothly," Jim said.
"Okay."
"They aren't."
"The hardware store is fine. I bet we go to the hardware store all the time."
"Sure," Jim said.
"You wanna cough drop," Blair said.
"Sure."
He'd played football with his friends in high school; they didn't see each other outside of practice much. He didn't tend to bring people home. School and practice were enough people; he couldn't recall having any really close friends. The closest he ever felt to them was when he was on the field and then they were both trussed up in pads and helmets, as if protected from each other, separated by a good strong layer of plastic compounds and foam. He'd often thought during his marriage that things would be easier if he and Carolyn could wear pads. And then, college, he was friends with all the other ROTC people. Considered serious. No one ever offered him pot. He'd studied a lot; more than he had to, really. He'd gotten a job in the library, replacing books on the shelves. The stacks were dark and narrow and dusty. Most of the books were untouched—pick one up, you'd see it had been last checked out in 1959, to some meaningless undergraduate, someone he'd never heard of.
And then the Army itself, where friendships were made through bunk assignments and shit duty, he'd known them, but still. He'd never been able to say a number of the things he imagined he might like to say to a friend: "I'm afraid," perhaps. And then, of course, he was commanding, and that was a different kind of friendship. Loyalty, support. He'd never shown them uncertainty or worry, sure of his duty, carrying it out.
The only thing he could think of that he'd routinely done with all his friends was hang around in bars. It was eleven o'clock in the morning. No, that wasn't the only thing he'd done. But he'd had friends that he played basketball with and work friends, with whom, now that he though about it, about fifty percent of their conversations involved saying things like, "How's that case going?" and "Like shit." and "When I catch that bastard I'm gonna kick his ass." To be certain, the other fifty percent concerned at least a little "How's Janeane," and the like, but shit, what did they talk about anyway?
And Carolyn, of course. He'd told her about his father. About the more interesting of his missions. He'd liked her even before that, with a sort of instinctive animal like. He'd liked the way she smelled and they'd gone to a restaurant together where the food was inedible and for some reason they'd both found this hilarious. He'd gone to the hardware store with her
Who knows how it had happened? Who knows how anything happens? Look back, all you see is a jumble of mish-mashed conversations. The odd confidence; a sprained shoulder, a four a.m. trip to the airport, the allegiance that comes when someone watches you kill a man, when someone gives you a towel for a bloody nose and tells you not to tip your head back.
They walked to the hardware store and Jim tried to explain the problem to the clerk, who was resolutely unhelpful.
"What do you think," he asked Blair.
"I can't hear it." The clerk looked dubiously at Jim. "But hey, I'm. He's a detective, so. If there's noise."
"He's a detective?" Jim said, when they got out of the store. "Were you trying to make me look like an idiot?"
"You told him your drawers were too loud. I was trying to be. supportive."
"good job."
"I do my best," Blair said smugly.
"You're really odd, you know that?"
"I'm not the one with the loud drawers. I mean." Blair laughed. Just a little heh heh chuckle, a dirty old man laugh.
"That's awful, Sandburg."
"I know. It's low blood sugar. What do you want for lunch?"
After lunch they poked around on the beach for a while, mostly just tramping up and down until it began to rain and the sand in his shoes was driving Jim crazy, so they went home and Blair actually read the book on Etruscan Textiles, so Jim read his Best American Short Stories 1997. He like short stories—their deliberation, their lack of excess. None of the excess business of a novel, people nattering away, engaged in activity that might or might not ultimately be important. Every piece of a short story was a clue.
They'd eaten a huge lunch, mainly because it was something to do, something to talk about. They didn't start to feel hungry until eight, when Blair started making tomato sandwiches.
"Just tomatoes?" he said.
"And mustard. They're good," Blair said, sticking them in the toaster oven.
"When I was a kid," Jim said slowly, "the housekeeper used to make these things in the toaster oven. Um. You take a piece of salami and a piece of cream cheese and you roll the cream cheese in the salami and toast it."
"Oh my god," Blair said, blinking. "That's pretty much. the worst thing I've ever heard."
"Yeah, and the salami sweats orange on to the cream cheese."
Blair made a disgusted noise.
"They're good. What, you only ate wheat germ?"
"I've eaten a fair amount of wheat germ."
"Good to see it didn't stunt your growth," Jim said, before he thought. "Sorry."
"Forget it," Blair said. "At least my arteries aren't bulletproof." He meant it. He was the first short guy Jim had ever met who wasn't sensitive about being short. Most of the short guys he'd know were half again as wide as he was, bulky, lifting weights since they realized they would be short forever.
Soon after the tomato sandwiches and some cheese, at Jim's insistence ("Yeah, Sandburg, they're good, but I gotta have something of substance here. And no it doesn't ruin the complex flavor of the tomato, for god's sake. It's cheese; it enhances the flavor."), they went to bed.
"Simon, I—" Jim fell into step with Simon as they went down the hallway towards the bullpen.
"Where's Sandburg?"
"At the U. that's actually sort of. what I needed to talk to you about."
"My office," Simon said, and ushered him in, "What's wrong?"
"We had a little run in with some of Crofton's guys the other day."
"I know—the arrest report was on my desk this morning. You're both okay, right?"
"Well. yeah."
"except." Simon prompted.
"Except, we sort of fell off this building. And."
"And."
"And we don't remember. each other," Jim admitted.
"You don't remember each other."
"Yeah. I mean, no."
"Hm." Simon stared at him for so long that Jim finally said
"It's psychological."
"You had it checked out."
"Yeah. They said we'd remember."
"When?"
"Soon. Could be any minute."
Simon rubbed the bridge of his nose. "So you expect me to let a detective with amnesia work blithely along."
"I'm really close on the Crofton case. Kind of. And we've been shorthanded with that A and P thing and the double homicide. And I remember everything from the files." Simon looked doubtful. "C'mon, Simon, I wouldn't bullshit you about this."
"And it's only Sandburg you don't remember."
"Yeah, that's it."
"Sort of a big thing to forget," Simon said slowly.
"I know."
"All right. I'm going to let you do this, but. let's just keep it confidential—I don't think it would look too terrific to have a amnesiac detective charging around. So just. you know."
"yeah. You're not supposed to tell me stuff—we're supposed to remember on our own."
"okay. back to work then. You should probably partner with someone."
"Connor?"
"Sure." Jim nodded and got up to leave. His hand was one the doorknob when Simon cleared his throat and said "oh. Jim. you still remember, uh, Sandburg's project."
"What? the thesis. Sure."
"Yeah. the thesis," Simon said, and winked.
"Sandburg." He had carried his cell phone into concrete emergency stairwell; Blair, he discovered, was the first number on speed dial.
"Yes?"
"Blair. It's Jim Ellison."
"Oh yeah. is this? Did you remember?"
"No. but. ah. Can you come down here this afternoon?"
"Down here like the police station? Is something wrong? Are you all right?"
"I'm fine."
"Then. Look, Jim, I have sort of a lot of work to do here—I'm way behind and I can't seem to do anything about accessing these encrypted notes and there are some term papers here that are over a month—"
"Sandburg, hey. You come down here all time—"
"Well. I'm sure I do, I mean, I am writing my thesis on you guys, but."
"No. You ride with me, you're here every day."
"I hardly think—"
"Pretty much every single person who's come by my desk wants to know when you were coming in and when I said "why would I know that" they looked at me strangely and just. I think you should get your butt down here."
"Jim. It's not like if I'm not there everyone's going to say, "boy, maybe they both have amnesia." And even if they did, so what?"
"So, I'm trying to act normally in an attempt to trigger a memory and what's normal involves you so just get down here. Unless you don't want to—"
"Geez. Okay. I'll be there at. One, is one okay?"
"One's great."
"Fine. Wouldn't want people to look at you weird."
"Just get down here and do some research."
So Blair came at one and threw him a granola bar and peered over his shoulder at his computer screen and finally sat down tentatively in the chair next to Jim's desk. People kept saying hello to him; he nodded and greeted them and finally Jim got a call. Convenience store, burglary.
"You can come," he said, pulling his coat off the back of his chair and waving to Megan, who stood up.
"Good, okay, I'll do that," Blair said.
In the truck, Jim said,
"I don't know why you just don't tell them. I mean, me. sure. But."
"It's just a whole can of worms and it's. I don't like hospitals, I don't like people freaking out over me. And it might get out at the University and then I'd get suspended, probably without pay, which I can't afford. It's not like I can't teach classes. The memories'll come back, then maybe I'll tell them and we'll all have a jolly laugh. Plus. I think it'd blow your cover."
"Picking up that detective slang already."
"Yeah. you're not really at all funny."
"Unlike you, Mr. Incredibly bad drawers jokes."
"It was funny at the time."
"hm," Jim said.
"Why didn't we ride with the woman?" Blair asked.
"Connor?"
"Right. You guys are partners?"
"Not normally."
"But still—why take two cars?"
"I don't know. I guess. She just expected us to ride together. I think we're sort of partners.
"Really?"
"Apparently."
"Wow."
"No kidding."
Blair was quiet at the crime scene. Watched Jim, even took some notes.
"I thought that went well," Jim said, when they got back in the truck.
"What do you mean."
"I mean, it seemed familiar. A little. And everyone seemed to expect you to be there."
"Shit, it's three-thirty," Blair said.
"So, you know, I think we have to keep on trying to maintain the routine."
"Excuse me, hello, I have things to do."
"More important than regaining your memory?"
"I'm just not sure about this obsession you have with recreating everything," Blair said disparagingly.
"I'm not the one who was shrieking about the gravity of the situation."
"What is your deal with impugning my masculinity?"
"I wasn't impugning your masculinity."
"Sure. And I bet you shriek all the time."
"I've. Yes," Jim said defensively.
"When confronted with a felon, for instance," Blair suggested.
"Maybe shriek is sort of a strong word."
"Perhaps more like a manly bellow."
"Okay. I was impugning your masculinity. Sorry."
Jim pulled into the police station parking lot.
"You think that's enough time?" Blair said "I need to get back to the work."
"Yeah. I guess. See you tonight."
"Yup," Blair said, sliding out of the truck. Jim rolled down the window.
"Wait a minute,"
"Yeah?" Blair turned back.
"Do you know where the thermostat is?"
"um. no."
"If you get home before me. It's by the bookshelf on the far wall."
"Okay. thanks."
"No problem," Jim said, and rolled the window back up.
"Hey," Jim said, meeting Blair in the stairwell.
"Hey," Blair said, struggling to hold a grocery bag while unlocking the door.
"Here," Jim said, and took the bag, shrugging the grocery bag he was already holding into the crook of his elbow.
"Thanks."
"Looks like we both had the same idea," Jim said, setting the bags on the counter.
"No. you left a note for me, to do the shopping."
"Note. I didn't. what note?"
"This one," Blair said, fishing a crumpled list out of his pocket that said quite clearly across the top 'Blair, get the store brand grapefruit juice. And tile cleaner.' There were a half dozen other things to which Blair had added a scribbled list of his own. "I forgot this bowl I wanted to show my tutorial kids, so I dropped by this afternoon and it was on my bureau."
"I didn't leave that for you—it must have been from before."
"I guess so," Blair agreed, starting to pull things out of the bag and stick them in the refrigerator.
"Well. Thanks."
"For?"
"For doing the shopping."
"You're welcome. I thought the note was a little high handed this morning, but. you know. if I do it, there's a reason, I'm sure." He held out a hand and Jim handed him a carton of milk and some carrots.
"There's a cosmic alignment that allow you to do my grocery shopping?"
"Something like that," Blair said, straightening.
"What'd you get?" Jim asked.
"Stuff for Mexican. Bet you got steak or something."
"Yup."
"Figures."
"You're vegetarian. Of course, I should've known."
Blair looked at him curiously. "You got one for me."
Jim looked uncomfortable for a moment and then said, "Oh, and you only got enough Mexican stuff for one."
"Yeah. but. Mexican. That's like, more lettuce."
They smiled at each other and Jim shook his head and said,
"I think. This is a pretty fucked up situation, you know."
"Really? C'mon. You're only living with a total stranger. Who isn't a vegetarian, by the way, so let's get cracking—I'm starving from a day of observing."
"I'm starving from a day of pretending you're my best friend."
"That too."
"Sandburg—pass the pepper. please."
"You know," Blair said conversationally, "you can call me Blair. I mean, this whole Sandburg thing makes me feel like we're on some football team of two."
"But."
"But what? We live together, we keep our toothbrushes in the same little cup thing, I think you can call me Blair."
"But I'm used to—"
"Jim. How hard can it possibly be? Say Blair."
"Blair," Jim muttered.
"Very nice. Have you ever had a friend you just called by his first name?"
"Of course."
Who?"
"There was Irwin Goldstein."
"You had a friend named Irwin Goldstein."
"Yeah. what are you, an anti-Semite, Sandburg? He was a nice guy."
"yeah. So when was this epic friendship?"
"1972," Jim said, after a minute.
"And you were what, eleven? That doesn't count."
"I call women by their first names."
"You call that Australian woman Connor."
"You're a pain in the ass, Blair. What's wrong with calling people by their last names? Wait. Hold on. I call Simon Simon."
"Very good. One person. That's excellent."
"Jesus. Fine. Blair. But I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to call me Ellison."
"What?"
"It's my preferred mode of address. It makes me uncomfortable to be called Jim." Jim threw him a sly grin and took a bite of his steak.
"I can't call you Ellison."
"Well. That's pretty inconsiderate."
"How about a nickname?"
"I don't have a nickname."
"C'mon, not even one?"
"No."
"They didn't call you killer or Silent Joe or anything in the army?"
"Rangers. They called me sir."
"Whoa. Well. excuuuse me."
"Can you just let me eat in peace here?"
"'Course."
"The cucumber salad is really good."
"Thanks. It's my mom's recipe."
"Should you maybe call your mom. about this?" Jim said.
"She's in Siberia. Or somewhere. Mongolia by now, I think."
"Why?"
"She likes to travel."
"There are telephones in Mongolia."
"Not in yurts."
"She's living in a yurt?"
"You know what a yurt is?"
"No. But it sounds. Does this have something to do with yaks?"
"It's a tent. circular. domed. traditionally used by the Mongols."
"Ghengis Khan," Jim said indistinctly through a bite of steak.
"More or less."
"Does it really bother you to be called Jim?" Blair was pulling open a succession of drawers in the kitchen.
"No. It's fine. Second drawer on your left." Blair opened the drawer and got out the saran wrap.
"Thanks. It's weird, you know, that I can't remember where the saran wrap is."
"Why? Maybe you can't remember normally."
"Well. It's weird that I knew I lived here. Technically, I shouldn't. because I obviously moved in here after I met you."
"So it doesn't follow logically. Neither does amnesia, really."
"You're taking this really well, you know."
"For someone so rigid in his ways."
"No. I. Hey, Jim, it's just, I'm used to weird roommate situations. I lived in this place once where there was a communal bed, and—"
"Yeah, gotcha."
"It wasn't like that. Mostly, I mean."
After they finished cleaning up, Jim sat down in the living room and worried at the pages of a book while Blair graded steadily, flipping the blue books across the table when he finished with them.
"Jim. If you wanna watch tv or something, don't let me cramp your style. I can go in my room to do this."
"I'm reading."
"Yeah. You've been starting that chapter over and over again for the last twenty minutes."
Jim twisted his neck and gave Blair an irritated look "Are you always such a know-it-all?"
"I think I am cramping your style—so, I'm"
"It's not that, Blair."
"Then what?"
"Um." Jim grimaced and put the book down. Blair got up and came over to sit on the sofa.
"Are you okay?"
"Blair. I don't want you to get mad or—"
"Jim. I realize you've only known me for two days, but I don't get mad."
"Yeah. Um. D'you think we're."
"We're what?"
"Together," Jim said, and at Blair's look of non-comprehension, elaborated, "having. sleeping. together." He had, in truth, expected something of a outburst from Blair. He was an excitable guy, as far as he could tell, but Blair just looked thoughtful. "I'm just," he continued, "I'm just contemplating the evidence here and. I think it's something to consider."
"It would explain things, I guess."
"yeah."
"Who's the last person you remember living with?"
"Carolyn."
"Who is?"
"My wife. ex-wife."
"Hm," Blair tilted his head. "Which would indicate that you're straight."
"Not really."
"You were married, man. I don't—"
"Yeah, and now I'm living with a grad student six years younger than me who follows me around everywhere I go, who apparently does my grocery shopping who, you know, looks like you."
"You saying I look gay? That's not very—"
"No, Jeez, Sandburg, I'm just saying, you know."
"Look. The Blair that knows who the hell you are might have some inkling of what you mean by 'you know'. Although I doubt it, actually, seeing as I'm not clairvoyant. But I really have no idea what you're talking about."
"You look. hmn," Jim winced and said, "I like the way you look."
"Yeah?" Blair smiled.
"And I guess," Jim went on, "I think unless there were some really good reasons not to. I would have made a pass at you."
"And I live here. Which would indicate a pass made and accepted."
"Seems like it."
"And Simon winked at me. about you."
"Simon winked?"
"It was weird." Jim said, and finally met Blair's eyes. Blair looked pleased, he thought. Blair's jawbone was a pure slight curve; it would fit in his hand, he thought.
"And I figure," Jim said, "you've been here a while. So you must be—"
"more than a fantastic lay."
"Right."
"But. based on the last few days. we don't. You don't seem to like me much."
"What are you talking about?"
"I—"
"I like you fine. I bought you steak. I just told you I think you're. hot."
"But you keep yelling at me."
"I have not been yelling at you," Jim said, carefully not yelling.
"You were gruff."
"I'm gruff with everyone."
"So you do like me."
"You're okay," Jim said grudgingly. "Well?"
"Well what?"
"Well, I've bared all. What about you?"
"I like you."
"And."
"And I would make a pass at you," Blair said.
"oh."
"hm."
Jim looked sideways at Blair "So do you."
"um."
"perhaps. Maybe if. We just kiss."
"Very Sleeping Beauty of you."
"Hey, it'll be familiar. maybe."
"okay," Blair said faintly and Jim leaned over him and gave him a dry gentle kiss, one loose hand on his shoulder.
"Anything?"
"Um. no."
"yeah."
"huh."
"Well. let's just. It doesn't mean anything. Let's just go to bed."
"You mean?"
"No. I'm going. Upstairs."
Blair came home the next night to find Jim chopping carrots and as he turned to throw them into the stir fry, Blair put a steadying hand on his arm and reached up to kiss Jim, almost missing his mouth. A few carrot slices fell to the floor.
"What are—"
"I was thinking about it today, you know, and I was thinking it wasn't very natural last night—it wasn't very—um. I thought if we really were involved, I'd come home and find you cooking. And kiss you."
"I see," Jim said, licking his lips.
"So how'd it. what did you think?"
"pretty nice."
"Um. me too."
And Jim leaned down for another kiss and then moved forward and trapped him against the counter and wrapped a hand around his neck and really kissed him, returning his perfunctory good night kiss with fierce slow concentration, dawdling on Blair's lips, moving in closer when he didn't object.
When they broke off the kiss they were both gasping and Jim was already fiddling with the buttons on Blair's shirt.
"Remember anything?" Blair asked without moving his hand from Jim's back.
"no."
"Me either."
"Doesn't mean anything," Jim said.
"no," Blair said into his mouth and let Jim get his hand under his shirt.
Jim kissed him and caressed his back and then walked him backwards slowly to the couch, pushing him gently down, coming down on top of him, finding his mouth again. Blair reached around and yanked Jim's shirt out of his waistband, his mind already whirling with all the things they were going to do—all the things they had already done, he supposed, and shit, what a thing to forget because Jim was fumbling with the buttons on his shirt and then he gave up on the shirt and just pulled Blair securely towards him so he could kiss him thoroughly.
Blair held him, one hand splayed on his hip, the other sliding up under his shirt to stroke hot skin and kissed him back and Jim slid his hand down to grasp the underside of Blair's knee and pulled it up and his hips slid up firmly against Blair's cock. Jim left his mouth and licked along his jawline.
"Jim," Blair moaned.
"Mm," Jim said, sliding a hand into Blair's waistband.
"Jim, um,"
"yeah?" Jim said. He nuzzled Blair's collar bone and flexed his hand gently on Blair's waist.
"I, Jim, wait."
"Is something wrong?"
"No,"
"good," Jim said, and kissed him lingeringly on the mouth, slowly kneading his nipples.
"It's just," Blair said when his mouth was free, "is there anything of mine upstairs?"
"Hm?"
"If we were together, there'd be something of mine. Upstairs,"
"Appearances," Jim mumbled.
"But something. a shirt or a book or something. There is, right?" The fingers running teasingly across his stomach and hips slowed and then stilled altogether.
"No."
Blair closed his eyes. "Shit."
"Fuck," Jim said. He seemed to be having some difficulty focusing his eyes
"Right. get off me."
"I'm going out," Jim said abruptly and rolled off him, grabbing his jacket on the way out. Blair flopped back on the couch and pressed a suppressing palm over his cock. Then he got up and finished the stir-fry.
Jim didn't come home for two hours. Blair was on the balcony, reading with a flashlight, and didn't hear him come in. When the lights in the loft came on, he went in to find Jim leaning against the counter eating.
"Thanks," he said, hefting the bowl in Blair's direction.
"No problem."
"Sorry," he said. "I wasn't."
"It's fine." Blair said. "Sorry about." he waved his hand towards the couch.
"No, you were right."
"yeah." Jim ate steadily for several minutes.
"It's not that I didn't want to," Blair said abruptly.
"Sure," Jim nodded.
"Because I—"
"Blair. shut up."
"okay."
"Jim," Megan said. "Why am I here?"
"Is this an existential question?" Jim asked, pawing through a dresser. They were searching a murder victim's house.
"No, I mean. Why are you suddenly tagging along on my cases? Where's Sandy?"
"Busy."
"Is Simon checking up on me? Because this kind of covert—"
"Megan, no, he's not."
"In that case, why don't you take yourself off and let me solve this case."
"I can't."
"Why not."
"I have some amnesia."
"A likely excuse."
"No, I really do."
"What did you forget?"
"Blair."
"Sandy?"
"You don't have to look so delighted."
"I'm not delighted. I'm. You're telling the truth."
"Yes."
"What does he think of this?"
"He doesn't remember me."
"Oh. My god. Are you two okay?"
"Fine. It's supposed to come back."
"When?"
"Soon."
"But you're not going to kick him out or anything?"
"Why would I do that? He lives there."
"Just making sure—I just wanted you to know that you guys are really close friends and—"
"yeah, Megan, I know. I know. Can we just get back to this searching the premises thing?"
"Fine."
Jim put a careful hand on the doorjamb of Blair's room and said "Blair, can I speak to you a minute?"
Blair appeared in the doorway, wrapped in his robe, looking apprehensive. Jim didn't look angry. He looked, in fact, firmly neutral, which was almost worse. He produced a book from behind his back and held it out. Blair took a step forward and took the book.
"This is my book," he said, flipping through the heavily annotated pages, dark with his handwriting. "Where'd you—?"
"Upstairs," Jim said. "Bedside table."
"Oh god."
"That's all you have to say?"
"Pretty much, yeah," Blair said and grinned hugely.
"So were you. doing anything important," Jim said diffidently.
"nope. Nothing."
"Megan said we were, uh, close friends today."
"Did she," Blair said softly
"And remember how you had all those books on your bed the first night?"
"uh huh," Blair said and Jim slid two fingers under the collar of the robe. He'd planned to peel it off, sort of slowly and sexily, planned to ever since Blair had opened his door, but he found himself lurching forward to kiss Blair, yanking the robe off his shoulders, the robe had been carelessly tied and the knot slipped open as his hands slid down Blair's bare back, as one of Blair's arms curled around his neck. The robe fell on the ground and Blair's other hand rubbed along his cock and they stopped kissing for a moment and Blair said,
"Hey, you really want it,"
"No kidding," he said, fingering the last few vertebrae.
"What do you want," Blair said, shivering a little.
"What do you want?"
"Well, you don't have to go all polite now," Blair said, almost crossly. He was hard. Jim felt a trickle of sweat trace its way down the center of his back,
"I wanna give you a. suck you. And then. I."
"Yeah?"
Jim kissed him hard and when he started to pull back, Blair fisted his t-shirt and pulled his mouth back down, shoving his tongue into Jim's mouth.
"You wanna fuck me, right?" Blair muttered against Jim's lips.
"Yeah. I mean, if that's okay."
"It's like you save up all your politeness for sex," Blair said.
"The sarcasm's screwing with the mood a little here."
"It's just, you could try being oh," he said, because Jim had given up and knelt down and started licking his cock, right there in the living room. "I gotta sit down, I'm. I'll fall or." And Jim caught him and lowered him down and knelt between his legs and slid his mouth back over the head of Blair's cock. Hands stroked across his stomach and thigh and Jim sucked him and let him shake and moan and scrub his shoulders against the rug, slid a warm hand beneath the tense arch of his back when he came.
"Okay. rugburn," Blair said, some minutes later.
"You wanna go upstairs?"
"Do you wanna go upstairs?"
"I'm not the one squirming all over the rug." Jim pointed out.
"How do you wanna do it?" Blair said, sitting on the bed and watching Jim pull off his pants.
"How do you think we usually do it?"
"Does it matter?"
"Following a routine," Jim reminded him.
"Screw routine. How 'bout hands and knees?"
"That could very well be routine." Jim said approvingly.
"C'mon. I think it's sexy."
"You think hands and knees is sexy."
"I think if you have any affinity for asses, yes, it's sexy. And if you don't, than what the hell are you doing having anal sex anyway?"
Jim sat down next to Blair and kissed him, stroking his cheek. Then he pulled back and asked "Do you not want to do this?"
"No, why would you. of course I do."
"Because you're nervous as hell," Jim said.
"I want to." Blair said and lay down, grasping Jim's shoulder and pulling him down, smiling, arching his back.
"Okay," Jim said, and knelt up, leaning forward, stroking his hands along Blair's legs, pulling them around his waist, kissing his stomach, "I think we should do it like this," he said, straightening up slightly,
"okay," Blair said.
"You're not gonna accuse me of not liking asses or anything."
"No," Blair said, breathless at Jim's hands on his hips.
"Just making sure,"
"Jim," Blair pleaded.
"Because I like asses," Jim said, running the first firm finger across Blair's hole.
"Well that was. pretty good, I thought," Jim said, still panting. His skin was blotchily flushed.
"Me too," Blair said, sliding his legs down from Jim's waist. His hairline was dark with sweat. Jim found his t-shirt on the floor and mopped them both off.
"um. mmm," Blair said as Jim gave him a sleepy kiss on the corner of his mouth and flopped onto his back. "You remember anything?
"No," Jim said, opening his eyes.
"Oh. You wanna still? I can go downstairs."
"Do you want to?"
"no."
"Good. Even if we don't remember anything. I still think. There's a lot of evidence." But Blair was yawning and squirming closer under the blankets so he gave up and turned over, slinging an arm across Blair's stomach and nosing into his side.
"Plus you're hot," Blair mumbled.
"What?" he said, but Blair was already asleep.
Jim was mostly dressed, pulling a shirt over his head, when Blair woke up. He sat up and Jim came over and sat down next to him on the bed, gave him a kiss on the cheek, and started to put on his socks and shoes.
"Want me to come in today?" Blair asked.
"Sure. If you're not too busy—I'm going out to talk to this missing guy's family this afternoon. You could come."
"Okay."
"Come around noon and we'll get lunch together. If you want." Jim tied double knots in his laces.
"Yeah. sounds good."
"All right," Jim said, and got up, smiled quickly at Blair and gave him a pat on the shoulder. "You getting up?"
"Yeah," Blair sighed, and shoved the blankets down.
"Hairboy," Brown shouted across the Bullpen, when Blair walked in.
"hey," Blair said, "how're you doing?"
"you know. fine. Same old same old."
"sure. the. Jim, you ready there?" he said.
"Yup. Let's go."
"D'you think he always calls me that?" Blair said after the elevator doors were closed.
"Maybe." Jim punched the button for the basement.
"It's a little irritating."
"Yeah. well. you have this thing with names, you know."
"That so wrong?"
"No," Jim shrugged. They walked through the garage to the truck in silence. "Are you okay about. with. last night," Jim asked, as Blair climbed into the truck.
"Hey. yeah."
"I figured I would have heard about it by now if you weren't," Jim said, and grinned.
"Hey." Blair said.
"C'mon. You would have been yelling and jumping around and stuff."
"I d'know. I feel. Calm about the whole thing."
"yeah," Jim said.
"Hey," Blair said, once more, and snagged the front of Jim's sweater and gave him a kiss.
"Do you think this is wrong?"
"Oh my god am I hurting you? You gotta say something, Jesus."
"No you're not, No, Blair, don't stop, please."
"Wrong then, wrong, Sodom and Gemorrah wrong."
"I don't, um. again. Please. No. I mean, wrong. because we don't know each other."
"What? I told you to hold on to the fucking headboard."
"Sorry. uhm. yeah."
"I know you. You like to be kissed here. and. Here, and you like to be fucked slow."
"yeah."
"oh. baby."
"yeah."
"I meant that sort of as more of an 'oh man' sort of 'oh baby.' Not that you're my baby or anything."
"yeah."
"But you sorta are."
"uhn. I. "
"oh. Jim. oh."
"yeah."
"So, it's Saturday," Blair said, wiggling his toes and staring at the ceiling.
"My ass hurts," Jim said.
"Sorry."
"It's okay." He shifted against the bed. "Did your ass hurt?"
"Some." Blair stretched extensively and rolled over onto his stomach. He ran a hand over Jim's stomach and Jim gave him a repressive look and said:
"Do you think that's strange?"
"Strange how?"
"Why would our asses hurt?"
"Tell me this is rhetorical."
"I'm just saying," Jim said patiently. "if we were together, then why would our asses hurt?"
Blair shrugged "Maybe we hadn't had done that in a while."
"Maybe we don't do that."
"I think we do that."
"Why?"
"because not to would be really repressed and weird. because we like it. right?" When Jim didn't answer, Blair poked Jim's navel and said "right?"
"Right, right."
"Maybe we had a fight."
"When?"
"Oh, I don't know," Blair said off-handedly, "right before we forgot each other?"
"Maybe we were breaking up," Jim said.
"Naw."
"Why not?"
"I just don't think we were."
"Oh, I see."
"Look, if you wanna break up with me, you can damn well wait until you remember me," Blair said emphatically.
"Fine by me."
"Does your ass really hurt a lot?"
"Define a lot."
"I just meant, maybe we don't do it that often."
"You've got to know how ridiculous that statement sounds."
"I meant, maybe we don't fuck very much."
"Maybe," Jim said. "I can smell you when you're horny, you know."
"Are you changing the subject?"
"Yes, I'm changing the subject."
"What do I smell like?"
"Slutty. and sort of like green pepper."
"hm. slutty?" Blair chuckled quietly to himself.
"I can hear you when you lie there and giggle, too."
"I don't giggle."
"Yeah. just like you don't get mad."
"I don't get mad."
"Don't change the subject. What are you over there giggling about?"
"It's just. I, um, like you. and you taste good. And you can stop even attempting the 'aw shucks' look. You're into compliments."
"mph."
"And you're a cop."
"Has anyone ever told you you're sort of fetishy about this cop thing?"
"fetishy?"
"Hey. I can say fetishy if I want to," Jim said crabbily.
"Does it bother you?"
"I didn't say it bothered me, I was just pointing it out."
"Are you sure you aren't just projecting your grad student fetish?" Blair moved over so he could touch Jim's face.
"I don't have a grad student fetish. I've never done anything with a grad student in my life. Except during college."
"And now."
"Yeah, now."
"Fetishes don't have anything to do with whether you've done something. I mean, a lot of times, they're about the lure of the forbidden."
"Don't try to wiggle out of this with academic trivia. You get off on the cop thing."
Blair shrugged. "I have to admit. It's sorta. Sexy. You know. Because you're so. that striding around the crime scene thing you do is so hardcore. But then you cook and. Um. have sex with me. which is really. It's very sexy."
Jim grasped Blair's arm and pulled him up across his body. He slid his hands down over Blair's shoulders and back and opened his legs a little to cradle Blair's pelvis.
"Perhaps I'm developing a grad student fetish. You wanna move?"
"I thought you didn't want me to wiggle," Blair said.
"Fine. Don't move, then," Jim said and twisted his hips slightly under Blair. He ran a finger along Blair's spine and Blair gasped and moved. Jim rolled them swiftly over. With Blair beneath him, one arm around his neck, the other clutching his waist, he pushed his hips against Blair's, soon shaking with effort, and Blair reached up and caught his mouth, kissing and kissing him.
"Thought I told you not to move," Jim said then they were finished.
"You're only exacerbating this cop fetish you claim not to like," Blair told him and stretched one leg around to hook against Jim's thighs.
On Monday, he barely managed to get out of his truck before Megan came tearing into the garage and yelled,
"Jim, get in the car—"
"But—"
"Just get in the car," she said, and threw herself into the driver's seat of her car, leaving him to fold himself into passenger side.
"What's going on."
"Crofton just left town."
"And."
"In a car. He's going a meet in Canada someplace."
"And what are we doing?"
"We're following him and arresting him when he does something illegal."
"Megan, this is—. not at all police procedure."
"Oh, it isn't? So you don't want to arrest a great load of mobsters?"
"It's not our jurisdiction." Megan was, by this time, going about seventy.
"So we'll call the Canadian authorities at a rest stop."
"Where did you get this tip."
"It's a reliable source. Can you get that package of peanuts out of my purse? I didn't get any breakfast."
"This is a wild goose chase," Jim said, handing her the peanuts and punching in Simon's number on his cell phone.
Simon, unfortunately, did not agree.
"I'll call ahead to customs," he said, pleasantly. "Tell Connor she's doing a good job. Very proactive."
"Sure," he said sourly. "Simon's been reading that stupid book about effective middle management again," he told Megan. Then he dialed Blair.
"Hey—"
"Hey," Blair said, "are you far away or something? There's a lot of static."
"Megan's making me go to Canada," Jim said, with a glare at Megan, who was crunching peanuts and steering with one hand.
"What, why?"
"Case."
"Okay."
"So, you know, I might not be home."
"How long?"
"Not long. A couple days, maybe."
"All right. Be careful," Blair said, his voice nervous. He was close to saying I love you Jim could tell, that almost reflex I love you of important phone calls and Jim said hurriedly, "So, I'll see you soon."
"Yeah," Blair said and hung up before Jim could.
"You guys remember each other yet?" Megan said.
"Not yet," he said.
It took them a week. The first day was driving, a fair amount of it hurtling at great speeds along twisted narrow roads, and the next three were spent crouching in a dirty bungalow hotel telling people they were Mr. and Mrs. Larry Pembleton.
"Good name," he said.
"Oh Jesus, the roof leaks," Megan said.
"I think we should go home."
"Are you going to leave me here without backup?" Megan said, sitting down and pulling off her shoes.
"No."
"I'm gonna go buy a soda. You want one?"
"No," he said.
Then, of course, there was the inevitable shoot out and he had to stop being quite so annoyed with Megan because she could really kick the crap of people when she needed to, which she did. They spent the next two days interrogating thugs and being given tepid coffee by Canadian officials. Megan diffused some of the jurisdictional issues by yammering about how American did tend to butt themselves in where they weren't wanted and Jim smiled politely through the whole thing. Then they drove back—if anything, at a more ferocious pace than they'd gone there.
"Do you ever drive like a normal person," he asked Megan.
"How many trucks have you totaled, Mr. Big Stuff?" she said. But then she bought him extra fries at the next drive through they passed.
"Is this a bribe?"
"Is it working?"
"Yeah," he said.
"I know Blair doesn't really let you eat stuff like that," she said.
"I eat what I want."
"Sure you do," she said.
He met Blair outside the door, again, and this time Blair dropped his bag and grabbed Jim's shoulders, pulling him down and kissing him.
"Are you okay? Did you catch them? Are you hungry?" he asked, in the next breath.
"Yes," Jim said.
"Okay," Blair said, and pulled him inside and got him a beer. He stuck a pot of water on the stove and started cutting vegetables for salad.
"So what happened?"
"Same old stupid stuff."
"I missed you," Blair said, looking at the lettuce.
"missed you too," said Jim.
And that night, Jim unbuttoned Blair's shirt, kneeling between his legs, kissing down his stomach until Blair laughed.
"You're so. affectionate," he said.
Jim shrugged.
"Do you think we're in love?" Blair said.
"Probably."
"Yeah."
"It's been three years," Jim pointed out.
"That's the longest relationship I've ever had."
"Longer 'n I was married."
"So. we're probably really happy together," Blair said and Jim traced idle patterns on his chest and smiled at his shivery reaction.
"I bet," he said softly. Blair reached up and caught his hand.
"Then why don't we remember each other?"
"I don't know. But you remember everything else, right?"
"Except for all those people at the station."
"But that makes sense—if you didn't know me, how would you know them?"
"I guess. The department head knows who you are."
"really?"
"Yeah. She stopped and asked my how my cop was doing."
"So we're out at the University."
"Yeah."
"We'll remember each other. I just think that, um, we need to have a whole lot of sex first."
"And that's where the affectionate part comes in," Blair said and pulled Jim down on top of him.
"It's just pretty surprising," Blair said, sighing with pleasure at Jim's gentle grip on his cock, "because I've never had much luck with guys like you. You know. nice looking. Nasty temper."
"I don't have a nasty temper. I'm, um, sweet," Jim said, clearly saying the first contradictory thing he could think of. Blair started to laugh. "Oh yeah. yeah. sweet."
"C'mon. Look at me," Jim said, "I'm about to do anything you want. I mean it. You just have to tell me."
"anything?"
"Anything," Jim said, and winked at him and pinched his nipple.
"Lick it," Blair said, and moaned when Jim bent his head, said "Shit, I'm so boring, I always just want the same thing."
"What's that?"
"Fuck me," Blair said, "please, that's what I want."
"I wish I remembered you," Jim said, and slid up to kiss Blair, "because you're really something, you're really—" Blair kissed him, wrapping his legs around his hips and twisting Jim's hair in his fingers,
"c'mon," he said finally, "c'mon, I want it now."
"Turn over," Jim said, and when he was leaning across Blair's back, easing gentle fingers into him, whispered, "you know, I thought you might tie me up or get me to spank you or something, but this is just right because I love your ass, love how you want it. I don't need to remember you to make you crazy, your body remembers me,"
"Jim," Blair said, and shifted restlessly on his hands,
"I see you looking at me," Jim said, and licked his spine, twisting his fingers until Blair was shaking. "What are you looking at?"
"Just. You," Blair blurted.
"You want me?"
"Yes."
"You want this?"
"Yes"
He woke up to find that Jim had stopped holding him, and was staring at him from a few feet away, looking disconcerted.
"Sandburg," he said, vaguely aggrieved, sounding like he had when Blair's books had collapsed his bookshelf and spilled all over the floor.
"Oh shit," Blair said, and rolled away from him and pulled the sheet up over his body.
"I take it that means you remember."
"Yes," Blair said, "yes. I remember, I, that's, damnit," he said, yanking the bedclothes, "Can I have the sheet?"
"Well, you don't have to clutch it to your chest like I've violated your chastity."
"Seen everything I've got, have you?" Blair said nastily.
"Well. yeah."
"And whose fault it that?"
"What?"
"I'm starting to revise my opinion of your detecting skills, that's for sure."
"It's my fault?"
"Yeah."
"What about Mr. "You found some book I loaned to you, and really boring book by the way, so I'm going to jump your bones in the living room.""
"It's you who was doing most of the jumping."
"With your enthusiastic participation, I might add."
"I'm going downstairs." Blair looked briefly at the sheet and then rolled out of bed, completely naked, and went downstairs.
When Blair got home, Jim was deboning a fish.
"Hey," Jim said, ripping the spine out neatly and throwing it into the trash.
"Hey," Blair said cautiously. Jim looked up.
"Blair. That didn't. This morning didn't go real well."
"Yeah. well. it was a bit of a shock."
"I guess."
"You guess. I tell you. It was like a bad dream—I mean, the only thing missing was the dean on the other side of the bed. Or my mother. Or my dissertation committee."
"Well, Jesus, Sandburg, don't let me get a swelled head or anything."
"It's context, Jim, you were presented out of your proper context and I found it difficult and confusing to assimilate."
"Oh."
"And good god, that's what we look like to the outside would. Unbelievable."
"Yeh. Funny."
"I'm not sure if funny is the adjective I'd choose."
"Because I'm a guy."
"Context, once again. Sleeping with guys in its proper place and time."
"and I wasn't really," Jim said flatly.
"Well. It's sort of funny, isn't it, we both decide we're blissfully in love."
"Hm," Jim said noncommittally. "You want the chicken flavor rice or the garlic flavor."
"I think garlic goes better."
"Okay."
Some days went by. Blair cleaned off his bed and neglected to notice that Jim didn't wash his sheets. Things went back to normal, Blair crashing into the station, riding with him in the truck, reassuring hand on his back at several murder scenes. They went to a basketball game together and Taggart's barbecue. It was more or less like old times, especially once the hickeys faded.
And then one night, a weeknight at that, they were sitting on the couch, watching television. Blair wasn't paying much attention, thinking about nothing, about how he should maybe call his Mom, when he realized Jim's arm was around him. They'd started out sitting a quite respectable distance apart, but after a few moments of woolgathering, there was Jim's arm wrapped around his shoulders, quite familiarly. He opened his mouth, turning to Jim, but Jim's face was already there, smiling.
"Jim," he said.
"Yeah," Jim said mouth slightly parted. Blair could feel his fingers just inside his shirt, untucked, where it had rucked up slightly against the back of the couch and Jim leaned forward to him and Blair leaned back a little but there wasn't really any place to go, the angle they were at, because it was happening so quickly and Jim gave him a light wet kiss, fit one lip in between his and caught his lower lip and then he was scrambling backwards, back from Jim's closed eyes, half falling off the couch, like a character in some screwball comedy.
"What 'r you, what?" he said, not very coherently.
"I."
"Were you. I. Christ. You kissed me," he finally said.
"Yeah," Jim said tensely.
"Why? What? Don't."
"But why not?"
"Because I don't want you to, how. You. We're not together."
"Well. Not right now," Jim said.
"So why."
"I thought, maybe. You and me." Jim gestured vaguely.
"What? What's this?" Blair said, imitating his gesture.
"It's not like we haven't done it before, Sandburg," Jim said.
"And that's why you want it? Because we've done it before?"
"No. You know that. Don't be—"
"Don't be what? Don't be surprised because you're putting the moves on me?"
"I thought. " Jim said. "I thought maybe you'd. you were just startled the other day."
"Startled is the wrong word for it." Blair said.
"Blair," Jim said.
"Oh, what are you going to tell me next, Jim, my lips say no but my body says yes?"
"I'm sorry I kissed you. All right? Okay? Jesus," Jim said, scrubbing a hand down his face.
"Okay."
"So. Can I kiss you?"
"What? No. Why?" Blair nearly shouted.
"Why do you think?"
"I have no idea."
"Fine," Jim said. He was silent for a minute and then said, "I miss you. Upstairs, and I thought maybe you'd like to." His voice trailed off. "I mean, we could go on a date or something if you wanted to."
"Oh."
"So."
"A date."
"Sure, yeah," Jim said, face hopeful.
"Look, Jim, I don't want you to take this the wrong way because it's not that I don't. I mean, we're still friends and everything, I hope anyway, it's just. I don't want to go on a date with you."
"Is it because I'm a guy?" Jim asked cautiously.
"No, you know that."
"Can't we just. Try it," Jim said.
"No. I can't just anything with you."
"But."
"No."
"Blair."
"No, I said no. While I didn't remember, I was Blair Sandburg and you were my boyfriend and that was just fine. But if I remember you now and you're Jim Ellison and I'm your boyfriend and that's not. What I signed up for." He sat down in the armchair across from Jim.
"I don't understand."
"Jim. You're my entire life, okay? I'm. Sometimes I feel like I'm in too deep with you," Blair said desperately.
"Well, it's not like I'm not all tied up with you." Jim said and Blair had to laugh, because goddamnit, he couldn't believe he was having this conversation. Jim's shirt was unbuttoned, he noticed. Or not unbuttoned; the top two buttons were undone.
"No. if you wanna come down and teach a few of my classes and hang out in the lounge and have the other grad students laugh at you because you don't know your ass from an eighth century Mayan temple glyph, then you're tied up like I'm tied up."
"I never asked you to," Jim said. He was beginning to get angry, coloring up around his ears.
"But I did. And I just can't be sleeping with you on top of everything else."
"So don't come down to the station then," Jim said, with a visible effort to be reasonable.
"You don't want me to come down now."
"No. Blair. Why can't you go to work and then I'll go to work and then we'll come home and I'll tell you any Sentinel stuff that happened and you'll tell me whatever ninth century glyph stuff that happened and then we'll go to bed with each other. Just be. normal."
This is a bad moment, Blair thought. This is not one of those moments I'm going to look back on and laugh at. What he said was: "So you're saying you rather have my ass than. have me around at work."
Jim exhaled sharply at that, looked over at him in shock and said, "You don't fucking listen do you. Forget it, Blair. I mean, I'm not going to. Do whatever the hell you want."
"I will." Blair said, to Jim's back, because he'd already hauled himself off the couch and stalked down the hall to the bathroom.
Well, there it was, the truth. He'd had to say it, because he just couldn't have Jim kissing him or trying to go on a date with him, he couldn't have that. Jim called him the next day and asked if he was coming in. "I got this case," he said, no mention of anything unpleasant. "I'm busy," Blair said.
He'd hoped that in time they'd make it back to normal. Blair was his best friend; he told himself that a lot. His best friend and now he remembered why, at least, he could tell himself that Blair made good soup and told him funny stories in the truck and totally fucking forgave him when he was an asshole, and they'd gone sledding last winter, Blair had dug up these sleds from somewhere and insisted on it, deep snow sledding until Jim was soaked down through his long underwear and never mind all the obvious things like Blair being his Guide. He wondered if you really needed to be friends with your guide, let alone best friends. He couldn't wait to forgive Blair because Blair was really being a total fucking asshole.
"Did you move those papers," Blair said accusatorily.
"What papers?"
"The papers that were on the couch. This morning."
"Yeah. I put them on the bookshelf."
"Where."
"Third shelf."
"I just spent a fucking half hour looking for these in my bedroom, Jim. Thanks a lot."
"Hey, you could've just asked."
"You could've just left them there. It's not like I really leave a lot of stuff in the living room. And you know I clear all my stuff out of here at the end of each goddamn day, so it wouldn't have killed you to just leave them, would it? I mean, what, were they interfering with the balance of the universe?"
"What the hell is wrong with you?"
"Nothing," Blair said, and went into his room, closing the door.
"I know you still—I can still smell you," Jim said.
"Don't smell me."
"But—"
"Don't."
Blair had often been crabby before, but he had rarely been nasty. He'd teased Jim before about the cleaning, complained that he couldn't put down a book to go get a glass of water because Jim would put it back on the shelf before he got back. He'd even yelled about misplaced papers before; Jim told himself it was nothing new, that Blair was Blair after all, and you had to cut people slack. It sort of looked, though, like Blair wanted to hit him. It was a look he'd seen a great deal, but never on Blair, that I'd like to split your lip open look, and it was definitely shiny new.
Blair never brought up their sleeping together, but Jim tried to apologize for it anyway, which proved to be a bad idea,
"Why are you sorry?"
"Because," he floundered, "because, um. Blair, obviously you're pissed as hell about something so."
"So what makes you think I'm pissed at you?"
"You are."
"You know what? You just can't stand not being Mr. Trauma."
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
"Gimme a break, Jim, you know how it works, some shit happens to you, your woman gets shot to death in front of your eyes, your Shaman dies on your couch, and then you get to charge around with the fucking mask of manly grief and sorrow or whatever."
"I don't do that," he said unsteadily, knowing that this was not fair, that it wasn't fair for Blair to spend three years trying to get him to express his emotions and then attack him for it.
"Hey," Blair said, "if you'd remembered before me, would you have gone on fucking me?"
"What? No."
"Not even tempted?"
"Blair, I'd never do that. I don't even know how you can—"
"Don't call me Blair."
"Blair—"
"I'm not sure I believe you."
"Sandburg—"
"C'mon, Jim. You were pretty hot for it, after all, you wanna tell me, that if I didn't remember, if I asked for it, you wouldn't? Okay, you know, sure, maybe you wouldn't fuck me, but would the old conscience extend to refusing a blow job?" He stepped a little closer, voice softening, "c'mon, Jim, I know how much you like being sucked and licked. And what if I'd wanted to fuck you then, really wanted it, wanted it deep and slow just like you love it, what then? You probably could've rationalized that too."
Jim blushed.
"Jesus Christ I knew it."
"Knew what?" Jim said viciously, "That you turn me on? Big fucking surprise there."
"I'm not your fucking pet, Jim, I can be in a bad mood if I want to."
"And I'm not yours to just jerk around like that," Jim said, although it was clear to him that he was. He retreated to his room and beat off, unable to decide if that meant that Blair won or that he won.
When he was a kid, he'd spent one summer conducting experiments on the ant hill in the back yard. He'd poured water on it and sliced deeply into it with a shovel, turning the earth over and destroying the intricate tunnels. He'd told himself it was scientific interest, but it was mostly just the half-sadistic thrill he got from watching the ants erupt from the earth and scuttle to safety, some drowning, some crushed by collapsing earth.
He had thought he'd outgrown his dispassionate streak, but here he was again, prodding away, enjoying the power of it all, the disbelief Jim's face seeming like a dare. And that same feeling in his stomach, disgust and excitement, it made him wonder if he were becoming a sadist, or if he'd been one all along.
Blair had effectively stopped being his backup; he had come into the station more when he had amnesia. People asked what was wrong. "He does have a real job, you know," Jim said, startled at how reasonable it sounded when it wasn't coming bitterly out of Blair's mouth. Only Megan squinted at him and then threw half a dozen folders on his desk and announced, "I think this is a serial killer." He smiled at her gratefully and said, "Don't jump to conclusions, Connor."
"So Simon asked where you were today," Jim said.
"Yeah, well, I do have a job," Blair said.
"Uh huh," Jim said.
"Oh shut up," Blair said.
"You know what, Sandburg, he just asked, you know, 'so, hey Jim where's Sandburg been lately?' I know you have a job, I've been telling you for years you didn't have to come on stakeouts and you didn't need to get dragged around to crime scenes and you didn't have to hang out in the fucking surveillance van and for years you've been saying, no, Jim, no, you know, I want to, it's interesting, it's fine, I'd like to come along and so if you're going to do a one-eighty on that, fine, but you don't have to bite my fucking head off every time I say anything to you."
"Okay," Blair said. "I'm busy."
And Jim wondered, what, was he supposed to go hang out at Rainier, was that what he should do? Should he offer to set up the slide projector for Blair's lectures, flirt with the Head of the department's secretary? Turn about is fair play had worked well enough in the past, what with trying to kill everyone who was trying to kill him and pretty much everyone enjoyed being given head so you couldn't go wrong there, but he wasn't sure, for all Blair's words, that it was the appropriate response to this situation. He'd shown up to take Blair out to lunch one day, like he always did, for Christ's sake, like he did once a week at least, taking the back way in. He had a nodding acquaintance with an elderly professor on the first floor. He'd appeared in the door of Blair's office and he was always conscious of how big he was at the university—not big in a comforting way, in the way he usually found his size to be, useful for subduing people who were trying to kill him, that kind of thing, but big in a superfluous way. Blair's office was packed with books and boxes of slides and tablet shards and Jim felt as though he might knock something over and Blair gave him such a wary look.
"You wanna go to lunch?" he asked, embarrassed at the supplicative tone that had somehow crept into his voice.
"Um. I'm busy," Blair said. oh, what a surprise, Jim thought.
"You're not gonna eat?" he said.
"Later."
"So you could go now."
"Jim—"
"It's just, I came all the way over here."
"Yeah, well, sorry I can't twist my schedule all to hell to accommodate your every whim."
"Yeah, well, sorry I wanted to buy you lunch," Jim said, and left.
He didn't even buy himself lunch. He had a headache after that and he didn't know why he was even bothering. Blair asked him once every three days, brusquely, if there was anything wrong with his senses. 'They're fine,' Jim always said, because they were. He'd gotten really good with them—hadn't zoned out in months, they were perfect. He'd even been able to control them when he couldn't remember them, squeaky kitchen drawers aside. He barely even noticed anymore, having to tinker with them, dial up, dial down, he just could, the same way he could talk loudly or softly without thinking about it. He'd been noticing this before the amnesia as well, anticipating Blair upset at how little he needed him anymore, planning to make Blair hang around anyway.
And who was he fooling? Besides everyone, of course, not even Simon had noticed anything wrong, while he fucking pined for Sandburg. He'd tried to think of a better way to put it, because it was difficult to say, even to himself. But he was pining. He was even having some difficulty eating, his stomach tangling and lurching at Blair's guarded eyes, at the memory of having a kiss dropped on the back of his neck while he folded laundry, there was no logical moment at which he decided he wanted it, only that now he did. He'd seen Blair in his bed, or even, really, he'd been in Blair's bed, because Blair was more certain about what he wanted, muttering a constant stream of breathless instructions to Jim, who'd been happy to obey. Why not, anyway? The senses, even though he hadn't remembered them, had rendered every touch miraculous, startling.
He wasn't an idiot. He'd thought about it. Not often; not even really as a sexual fantasy. More that he'd considered what it might be like. Nothing special about that; slow days at the station, on stakeouts, he'd imagined what sex with everyone in the bullpen might be like. But, to be fair, he'd given Blair more consideration. He'd imagined it quiet and hot and slow and it had been dark outside and he'd only been able to see Blair by the stove light, left on downstairs, enough for Blair not to be able to see him at all. He'd imagined Blair's eyes wide, a solemn kiss to the inside of his forearm.
It wasn't a fantasy so much as a scenario—the same as playing out the ways a hostage situation could go down—it was important, he'd found, to be prepared. And he'd been prepared to come home and find Blair in his bed. He'd been ready, just in case, just in case he walked up the stairs one night and Blair was kneeling there, waiting for him, just in case one night he just said "go upstairs," instead of "pass the butter," it was an outside chance, of course.
Still, he hadn't been ready for all the rolling around they did, for how Blair had licked the crease of his shoulder and snickered at him, for how difficult it actually was to give a blow job.
"I'm sorry," he had said. "They're terrible, I know."
"They're not terrible," Blair had said, "they're fine. It's hot. seeing you like that."
"You've had better."
"Well, yes. But. Women've had years of practice. The first blowjobs I got were awful. I mean, I didn't know it at the time. But. Aw. Jim, you've improved. You've probably got a whole lot of blowjob knowledge you've forgotten. And it's not like I'm any good."
"You'll do."
"C'mon. I'm no better'n you." And Jim had kissed him then and Blair had held on to him and whispered, "I love your lousy blow jobs can I have one right now?"
He'd never even planned for the eventuality of making it in the early afternoon, underneath Blair, rubbing frantically against him, so hot in the sun he thought he might die, even Blair silent, panting, licking his jaw and shuddering.
Except now a good day was Blair being sullen instead of outright hateful, and he would have been angry except Blair was so goddamn miserable. Jim had spent the last three years having fights with Blair, but Blair had seemed to almost enjoy flipping out and calling Jim a control freak. They rarely yelled now; mostly Blair snarled like an animal caught in a trap and Jim couldn't stand not talking to him, got an almost sick thrill out of goading him. Because he was having sexual fantasies, after all, about Blair still, and if he couldn't turn him on, and it was a relief to at least make him angry.
"So why shouldn't I call you Blair?" he asked the night after Blair refused to go to lunch with him. He was making himself dinner; he seemed to spend a lot of time at the grocery store lately looking longingly at tv dinners. They made him sick, so he was stuck making things from scratch. He chopped at some broccoli savagely and Blair looked up from the book he was reading.
"You never used to."
"So. things change," Jim said, and gave him a smug smile.
"Cut it out, Jim," Blair said tiredly.
"why?"
Blair shut the book with a snap. "It's just a reminder of being your assboy, that's all."
"Assboy? That's not even a fucking word, Sandburg, and do you even know how ridiculous you sound?" He gestured at Blair with the knife.
"Who cares if it's not a word?" Blair said defensively.
"Put your hands on the headboard, remember that, Sandburg?" He threw the broccoli in the pot on the stove and slammed the lid roughly back on. "You cannot possibly be claiming that I used your ass more than you used mine because that's just. That's a lie. Selective memory."
"Fine," Blair said thinly. "I take it back."
"You can't take it back. If that's how you feel, then."
"I—"
"You're such a liar, Sandburg, you really make me sick sometimes."
"Speaking of saying what we really think," Blair muttered.
"So why wouldn't you go to lunch with me anyway?"
"I was busy."
"Yeah, I get it. So sorry I'm interfering in your career, there, Dr. Sandburg. Bet those Mayan glyphs never talk back."
"Mayan glyphs," Blair said, "never get in a snit because you won't let them fuck you."
"That really sticks in your craw, doesn't it?" Jim said. "It's not like you've never done it before." Blair didn't say anything, just opened his book and started reading. Jim took the pan off the stove, dumped it into a colander. Blair flipped a page. "Um. Did something happen to you?" Jim said. Blair laughed shortly.
"No. What, I have to have some brutal rape in my past in order to make the thought of your dick up my ass unpalatable?"
"I could do it to you right now and make you want it," Jim said quickly.
"Don't hold your breath for me to ask you to." Blair had dropped his book and stood up.
"Coward."
"What is going on with your insults today? What, are you gonna call me a cad next?"
"Changing the subject?"
"No. The subject is how much I enjoy having sex with you. Which I think would be pretty obvious after three weeks of pretty hot fucking."
"Two weeks," Jim said.
"It's was just fucking, that's all, all we did was fuck," Blair spit out.
"Maybe so. so what?"
"Right, of course, so what?" Blair said, and sat down again, back to Jim.
"Blair."
"I told you to stop that," Blair said and this time, when Jim opened his mouth, he could think of nothing to say. He put his food in a bowl and took it upstairs.
The next day was spent catching the serial killer. Megan threw him through a plate glass window.
"You could've used the goddamn door, Connor," he said, trying to keep the serial killer from bleeding on him while he read him his rights.
"He tripped," she said.
"All I'm saying is they don't have doors in Australia?"
The day after that was his birthday. There was a box at what had been his place at the table when he got home.
"I got it for you months ago," Blair said, "I just, I thought." He waved his hands dismissively.It was a sweater, soft and wool, and exactly the kind he liked, and not blue and he looked at it and remembered the conversation he'd had with Sandburg on a stakeout, someplace, he didn't quite remember, ["People are always buying me things," he'd said, "and telling me they match my eyes."
"Tell me about it," Blair had said.
"Blue is fine and everything, but what, I can't wear green? Last I checked, green goes with blue."]
"hey," he said, "it's not blue."
"Nope," Blair said.
"Thanks, it's great."
"You're welcome. I think it's you," Blair said and gave him a pinched smile.
"Hey, you wanna maybe come by the station tomorrow?"
"Um, maybe."
"I thought—" and a part of him couldn't even believe he was saying it, "I could use your input," Jim said.
It was not pleasant to know you could be so desperate for a person that half an apology was enough.
So here we go again, he thought, when Blair showed up the next day and threw himself in the chair next to Jim's desk as though he'd never left. You'd never know, Jim thought, and wondered if he looked like that, so impervious, cool, friendly. He didn't feel like it; he kept expecting Simon to yank him into the office for some sort of talk, because when he looked in the mirror, to himself, he looked heart—broken. Funny to find out that heart—broken looked just like normal. "Not exactly funny," Blair would have said, if he could have told him.
But someone found some cocaine in a kid's locker at Cascade High School and then the vice principle ("totally violated everyone's civil rights," Blair said) and searched every locker and they spent the afternoon interviewing owners of pipe bombs and rifles and stashes of LSD and releasing kids into their parent's custody and Blair was particularly helpful because he didn't scare the shit out of everyone like Jim did.
"I'm not trying to," he said.
"You can't help it," Blair said.
"Just like old times," Blair said in the truck on the way home.
"yup."
"Except, you know, without you telling me that my body remembers you."
He could scarcely believe it. "That's right, Sandburg, why don't you throw it in my face what I said." He stopped carefully at the next light, holding the steering wheel too tightly.
"You said it," Blair mumbled.
"Yeah, and you were too busy moaning and begging for it to say anything."
"Yeah, well, what can I say Jim, you're a pretty decent lay."
"Pretty soon," Jim said grimly, "we won't be friends anymore."
"Are we even friends now?" Blair said, staring out the window.
"It's your fault."
"Sure, it's all my fault."
"Well, you won't be, um. with me and you won't just be friends, you're either sniping at me or waving your ass in my face,"
"and what about you, trying to be nice so I'll sleep with you don't think I don't know," Blair interrupted.
"Why are we friends?" Jim said. He pulled into a parking space and cut the engine. "I mean, really, what do we have in common? I mean, you like to camp, so fucking what? We live in Washington, it's beautiful, everyone likes to camp."
"Sentinel?"
"Whatever. We could do that over the phone now. I don't live with my doctor."
"You know what? Don't look at me like this is my fault. You're the one who let me move in. You're the one who said it was no big deal and that you just had that bookshelf lying around in storage."
"Fine, you're right."
"I know," Blair said, and slid out of the seat. Jim got out, locked the door. They walked up the stairs together in silence. Blair went over to the refrigerator and started to rummage through it.
Jim went into the bathroom and washed his hands for a long time. When he came out, Blair had dug some noodle salad out of the refrigerator and was leaning against the sink eating it out of the container. It was Jim's noodle salad, expensive, with feta and sun dried tomatoes, and he had to buy the really good kind of feta since the cheaper kinds made him sick. This should be the last straw, he thought. This should be it; but it wasn't.
"You know I'll just take whatever you dish out, don't you," he said painfully. "you've known all along."
"What are you talking about?" Blair took another bite of salad.
"I'm fucking in love with you, you little shit, and I keep thinking if I'm nice enough you'll maybe—"
"Why don't you crank up the melodrama a little, Jim—they aren't quite catching you in Montana." He finished the salad and put the container in the sink.
"Oh you're one to talk, after all the raving you did about how sleeping with me would suck you into a vortex of something."
"don't even. You're only angry because I turned you down first."
"Bullshit."
"Yeah you are, you, just because I'm not so pathetically lonely, I'll fuck anyone who's even nice to me."
Jim sucked a stunned breath and said, "Just keep it up, Sandburg, go ahead. Because you've got sort of a sentimental hold on me now, but—"
"oh what? What are you gonna do?"
Jim took half a step towards him, one hand gripping the edge of the counter. "You know, I never asked you to horn in at the station, Sandburg. Or anywhere else, for that matter. So why are you still here?"
"For someone who doesn't want me around, you ask me out to lunch an awful lot."
"I think you're just hanging around hoping I'll lose it," Jim said.
"I'm not the one with a rape fantasy," Blair said pointedly.
"Yet you're still here."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You're sick of me but you're still here, sponging away."
"So it's fuck you or get out, huh?"
"Yeah, Sandburg, that's exactly right," Jim said, heavily, sarcastically, "Fuck me or get out," and he climbed up the stairs to bed.
"So," Blair said, sometime later. Jim had been asleep, had slipped into a weary sleep almost immediately, even though it had only been seven forty-five.
"What do you want now," he said, rolling over onto his back. He didn't dial up his sight; he didn't want to see.
"I've been thinking it over, I've. I'll fuck you."
"What?"
"You heard me," Blair said, and he was already unbuttoning his shirt, had it unbuttoned halfway down his chest,
"No, I." Jim said, coming more fully awake. "Blair, stop it," he said.
"No," Blair said, and knelt on the edge of the bed to kiss him and Jim started to sit up, but Blair pushed him back down and started kissing his shoulder,
"Don't," Jim said, feeling lips sliding towards his nipple, "I didn't mean it, I never meant it," and the lips skidded warm across his nipple, one hand already at his waist and he grasped it and found Blair's shoulder and pushed him away and said "Cut it out, I told you," and then they were fighting on the bed, Blair's breath warm and quick on his face, arms pinning him for a kiss, desperate tongue on his bottom rib, an evading hand catching him painfully in the eye, Blair was everywhere against him and he couldn't punch him, and it took him some time to get Blair stopped underneath him, sitting on his chest, holding his arms. "I told you, I didn't mean it," he said.
Blair didn't say anything for a long minute. "Hey," he said then. "Your eye okay?"
"Yeah."
"I'm sorry."
"It's fine."
"Not for that. That I'm. This isn't how I want it," he said, and closed his eyes. His mouth crumpled as if he might cry.
Jim loosened his grip on Blair's arms, but Blair didn't move.
"I was really happy with you," Jim said. "when we didn't remember each other."
Blair opened his eyes. "oh."
"Because you had this dumb sense of humor and I wanted you, and you were even sort of sweet,"
"I'm not,"
"Yes you were, and I didn't care that you were a guy and you had this long hair and yelled a lot, I didn't care, because I didn't know it was like this." Jim moved his hand and touched Blair's cheek. "I didn't know we were stuck together. I thought. It must have been, you must have come into the station and that we chose each other, somehow, that you chose me and came home with me."
"oh."
"And then I remembered and I thought maybe it didn't matter."
"Maybe it doesn't," Blair said hoarsely.
"Of course it does."
"You really in love with me?" Blair said.
"Yeah. But I don't know if we should. because. "
"We're not stuck."
"Yeah, we are. Blair. I'd never let someone else treat me like this, I'd never. You wouldn't.
"Maybe not."
"But you let me."
"'m in love with you." Blair said, as if it hurt him. "I'm. afraid."
Jim nodded. "I'm sorry," he said, climbing off Blair.
"Can I stay up here?" Blair asked.
"I think. you'd better not," Jim said.
"okay," Blair said obediently
Jim handed him his shirt.
Halfway down the stairs, Blair stopped.
"Hey. Jim. Do you wanna maybe go. on a date or something?"
"maybe," Jim said.

He'd hoped for some kind of magic rectification, some real fairy tale stuff. He'd thought Blair might come to the station again. Take him out to lunch. Joke about the date. date. Yes, he'd dated women until a couple months ago, even, but the word date still made him think of high school, of backseats and porches and he'd done real well with girls in high school. They thought he was deep, mainly because he was quiet and because he never tried to rape them. The second 'no', he yanked his hand back down from underneath their skirts and contented himself with kissing. He was good at kissing, liked the feel of a girl sighing in his mouth, arms hooked around his neck, and, distressing at the time, liked it better than feeling them up, all those sticky hot parts, the elastic in the leghole of their underwear digging into his wrist. Thinking back, it made him wonder what kind of bizarre fifties time warp he'd been occupying; it was the early eighties—he should have been fucking his brains out and his most salient memory of high school was saying, "you don't have to," when Lucy Atkins had offered to suck his cock and being so amazingly glad when she'd said, "no, I don't mind." Story of his life, really: Situations in which he should have been fucking his brains out somehow twisted, mutilated, until he didn't even really feel like having sex, everything gone sour, the memory of Carolyn saying, not unkindly, "I just can't sleep with someone I don't care about."
But Blair didn't come in, although no one noticed, since he'd been scarce lately. There was a double murder across town so Jim went and found the fibers and fingerprints forensics had missed. Midafternoon, there were jalepeno-cheese muffins in the break room. He dialed down and had one. He rode shotgun with Megan to arrest some art smugglers. It began to rain.
Blair was struggling with the laces of soaked boots when Jim got home.
"You get caught in it?" he asked.
"Big puddle by my car," Blair said, pulling at the last knot.
"oh," he said. Blair yanked off the last boot and looked quickly at Jim.
"So. I thought I'd make dinner." It had been two weeks since Blair had made any food that he'd shared with Jim. In fact, he'd seemed to be living entirely off bananas and cold cereal.
"okay."
"okay."
"You need any help?" Jim said as Blair yanked pans out of the cupboard. Blair shrugged with one shoulder.
"You could do some bisquick thing."
"I, uh, developed an allergy to bisquick. I threw it out."
"What happened?"
"My throat hurt and I got this rashy thing on my back."
"When?"
"Last week."
"oh."
"I can make something from scratch."
"if you want to."
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have bought it."
"C'mon. It's not like I'm expecting you to keep up with the preservatives I can't have."
"Any new ones?"
"Calcium Proprionate. I added it to the list." Jim jerked a thumb at the ragged piece of paper they kept on the refrigerator and Blair walked over and looked at it.
"Was yellow five on this before?
"No, it's new. I was on that stakeout with Rafe. Banana bubble gum."
"You chewed banana bubble gum?" Blair said incredulously.
"It was boring."
"mm. what happened."
"Cheek cramps."
"Shit. that sounds painful."
"not a picnic," Jim said, tapping an egg precisely against the side of the bowl.
"How was work," Blair asked at dinner, so he told him about the double murder and the muffins, how Megan insisted on turning the radio up when a Kylie Minogue song came on.
"I didn't even know you knew who Kylie Minogue was," Blair said.
"I do now, obviously."
"Jalapeno, huh," Blair said.
"So how was. your work?"
"Same old. Slide projector broke down during lecture. I wrote a real humdinger of a midterm."
"good," Jim said.
"These are good," Blair said, waving a biscuit at him. "Baking soda. amazing."
"Powder, actually."
"Did you even make one of those baking soda and vinegar volcanoes in school?"
While they were washing dishes, Blair sidled up to him, stood on his toes, and kissed him. It was a short kiss, one soapy hand on his wrist. Jim closed his eyes; he could feel the rough weave of the dishtowel on his skin, it almost burned. It took him a minute to open his eyes, to get rid of the nettle-sting of the towel.
"Am I making you nervous?"
"No. a little."
"Too fast," Blair said.
"Yeah."
"Or maybe, you don't—" Blair said uncertainly.
"No, I do. But you gotta hold on a little. I can't flip a switch."
"That's fine."
"Blair. you were." awful. cruel. He didn't want to say the words.
"yeah. I know. You don't need to explain it. I was there."
"okay."
"It was so easy for you," Blair said. "It really made me. hate you. I mean, there you were and you just wanted it, like it was so easy, like you just expected me to go along."
"I hoped—" Jim started to correct him.
"I hated how I just woke up one morning and you knew all this—" He sighed. "stuff about me. And then you kept looking at me like I'd ruined your life and it made me feel so goddamn guilty and I hated you for that too."
"You could've said something."
"I said a lot of things."
"You really in love with me?" Jim said, hesitating a bit at the words.
"I've always fucking been in love with you," Blair said quietly.
"We could go on that date," Jim said at breakfast the next day. Blair nodded and swallowed a bite of english muffin without chewing it.
"Tomorrow?"
"Sure. What are we gonna do?"
"I don't know, bowling?"
"I'm gonna have to bowl?"
"What, you hate bowling?"
"First: yes, you know I hate bowling. And second: shoes. fungus."
"Okay, yes, sorry."
"Movies?" Jim suggested.
"I can see who's going to be romantic one in this relationship."
"You suggested bowling."
"That's romantic."
They went to the movies and Jim wore his new sweater and bought Blair a box of gummy bears that cost three dollars and afterwards it didn't seem odd at all to kiss Blair, to find his mouth in the dark outside their door, sight dialed down nearly all the way, and Blair seemed hotter and closer for the dark, the wet sounds of their mouths louder.
"I. we need to go slow on this," he whispered, and Blair arms were tight around him.
"we can go slow," Blair said.
They spent most of the next week on a stakeout. Jim invited Blair like it was a date, carefully, a little diffidently, and Blair told Jim he was free and rescheduled his tutorial on the sly. The stakeout was in an unoccupied apartment, empty except for an old couch that they dragged over to the window. They watched the apartment across the street and graded tests. Jim graded the short answer.
"Are you taking off for spelling?" he asked, squinting at a test.
"What do you think?"
"I think you should."
"You're such a hardass," Blair said admiringly. He scratched busily at the page for a moment and then asked "So what are we waiting for here?"
"Any one of these people," Jim flipped an envelope across the couch, "to show up."
Blair opened the envelope. "Are they supposed to?" he said, examining the pictures.
"It's my considered opinion that they are on the French Riviera even as we speak. But Simon wasn't in a listening mood."
"What kind of timeframe do you have here?"
"Look, it's not even my case. But Riley got the flu and Annie had her baby two weeks early and Overstreet broke his wrist."
"Annie, Riley, wait, who are these people?"
"They're the task force on human rights violations."
"You have one of those?"
"well. They didn't want to give a raise to a bunch of people in narcotics and burglary, so they put 'em on a fancy committee."
"Are there a lot of human rights violations in Cascade?"
"I didn't ask. I just watch the window."
"How did you get this detail, anyhow?"
"I. mm. asked for it."
"why."
"Well, I thought it would be fun. Just. to hang out."
Blair smiled.
"So what's goin' on in the exciting world of anthropology?" Jim asked.
"We don't have to talk about that."
"I know. but maybe we should."
"Naw. Lemme tell you about this thing I heard about campaign finance on the radio." Blair said, and changed the subject. They did, that week, of course, talk about various topics in anthropology: tribal taboos and water snake rituals. There was some discussion of pastrami and the phase of the moon's effect on crime and how to make soap out of suet, but a lot of the time they just sat there, watching the window, companionable silence. Blair edged closer across the seat every day, but Jim did nothing. On the last day, he slipped his hand into Blair's and held tight.
And the next Wednesday after that, after dinner, Blair said,
"So. um. hm. Jim. did you want to maybe. you know."
"well."
"oh that's flattering."
"It's not—"
"Believe me, Jim, I wanna respect your boundaries, I really do. but. don't you want—I want—"
"I just need some time."
"Look, Jim, there's some complicated metaphor that I'm trying to remember here and I know I'm failing, but can't we just look upon the last month as you know, the fallout before—"
"before all the animals in a five hundred mile radius get radiation poisoning," Jim said flatly. Blair wiped off the counters and dropped the sponge in the sink.
"I said I was sorry. I was an asshole, is that what you need to hear?"
"I'm not trying to punish you."
"then,"
"I'm. We went fast last time and it was a total fucking disaster, Sandburg, you know that."
"Yeah," Blair said, walking into the living room and flopping onto the couch. "but this is several degrees of magnitude under a ridiculous amount of caution."
"Sandburg."
"Like, six kisses in the hallway the week before last? When you said 'slow' I thought you meant fooling around on the couch slow, not chastity belt slow."
"And I thought you said you could do slow."
"I can. But we're. in love. Right? So, you know, unless you don't believe me, I don't know why."
"I believe you."
"I just. I really need to know that you aren't doing that thing you do."
"what thing?"
"The thing. oh god this is really gonna piss you off," Blair groaned.
"That's never stopped you before—just tell me the thing."
"The thing where you're only interested if it's a really bad idea or if you can't have it or whatever," Blair said quickly, looking ashamed.
"oh."
"Come on, you know you do. With. Alex. and everyone else."
"So you're thinking now that you're being so accommodating, I'll lose interest." Jim got up abruptly and put his coffee cup in the sink.
"well, I—"
"You know, never mind the fact, Sandburg, that you've started paying far too much attention to the Women Who Love Too Much page a day calendar. but. you're such a pain in the ass, you know that, right?"
"mhn."
"you're really that insecure."
"yes, I am really that insecure. okay? all right? can it really be such a surprise to you?"
"Fine."
"Fine what?"
Jim shrugged. "maybe we can move into fooling around on the couch slow."
"whoo. really? No wait. I'm just going to sit here and. Um. unbutton my shirt a little and you can. come over here." He was blushing. Jim could see his nipples. He nodded. Blair leaned back on the sofa and ran a hand up his leg.
"seductive, Sandburg," Jim said, flipping off the kitchen light.
"someone has to be," Blair said. Jim sat down next to him and put one hand, very high, on Blair's thigh.
"the suspense is killing me," Blair mumbled and Jim's hand was inside his shirt, Jim leaning over him and kissing him. Blair mouth was docile under his, open, but nothing like the kisses he remembered; he remembered smutty kisses, Blair's tongue pressed indecently into his mouth, making him think automatically, even fully clothed, of fingers pressed indecently into his ass.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"I'm kissing you. on the couch."
"That's not how you kiss."
"What do you mean?" Blair said. "I kissed you like that so. that's how I kiss."
"Don't evade the subject."
"Jim, my self—esteem is at a really low ebb right now, just so you know. I mean, we're ostensibly having this relationship and you don't want to sleep with me and you made me put my sweater on the other day at the station and now my kissing technique is somehow lacking and—"
"It's not. Lacking. It was nice. But."
"That sounds like lack to me."
"You used to kiss. er. Dirty."
"what?" Blair said. When Jim didn't answer he said "I really didn't hear you."
"dirty," Jim said, slightly more clearly.
"um. okay," Blair said, nodding. He moved away from Jim on the couch, nodding and then squinted at Jim apprehensively. "okay, now I am actually having a sexual crisis because I'm not sure I can. kiss you. like that."
"what?"
"This was a lot easier when you were someone else," Blair explained.
"Come on."
"Oh, you don't believe me? Well. You still feel comfortable fucking me on the coffeetable, mumbling obscenities in my ear?"
"I see your point."
"Well, then."
"I said I saw your point. I didn't—come here," Jim said and leaned over and yanked Blair's shirt open and off his shoulders and slid his lips down Blair's chest, Blair's familiar warm chest and why had he been avoiding this, because Blair was exactly what he wanted, wanted to hold his dick and kiss his knees andhe'd gotten his hand inside Blair's pants, was flicking open the top button and Blair was squirming away from him, his face a brilliant mortified red.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry. I didn't know. This hasn't ever happened to me."
"Great," Jim said. He had a headache, suddenly.
"It's not. Jim, you're my friend and I've never done that with someone who's my friend."
"What about girls?" Jim said belligerently. "You sleep with girls who are your friends all the time."
"Girls don't count."
"oh."
"They're—"
"I don't need to know."
Jim leaned back on the sofa to look at the ceiling and Blair rebuttoned his shirt.
"Look," he finally said, "it's us. Only with sexual dysfunction."
"We're not dysfuntion. al."
"Yes we are. "
"no. we are not." Jim poked an accusatory finger at him. "I am doing fine. I want to do dirty things to you. But you don't want to have them done. Is that not an accurate description of our situation?"
"No, it is not. I want to have them done. It's just. weird. Not gross or anything, but. odd."
"Terrific. I'm not gross."
"I don't know where you get off being pissed—it's not like you wanted to until ten minutes ago."
"Well, I changed my mind."
"I'm sorry," Blair said again. He buttoned his shirt, hunching his shoulders. Jim rubbed his palms on his knees.
"So do you want to do this?" Jim said finally.
"No, wait. yes, of course. I just. I. It'll take some getting used to."
"Because I'm not sure I'm on board for a celibate homosexual relationship," Jim said.
"oh ha ha."
"We've already done it. You wanted to before."
"You ruined my momentum, man, you made me think about it."
"Are you saying you can't picture us having sex at all?"
"No, of course I can. But."
"Does this involve a sheet with a hole in it?"
"No, because that would be kinky and that's the whole problem isn't it?"
Jim glared at him.
"oh, don't get offended," Blair said.
"Well, I can't help it—I mean, I hold the dubious distinction of being the only person who doesn't make Blair Sandburg horny."
"Jim, yes you do."
"Do what? Jesus—see that? you can't even say it."
"Yes, I can. I'm. hot for you. definitely. very hot."
"That's the least erotic thing I've ever heard, Sandburg."
"thanks a lot, that's very encouraging—how do you expect me to want to do you in this atmosphere?"
"I didn't say I didn't find you erotic. You're plenty fucking erotic, okay?"
"Just. gimme a day to think about this, okay? A couple days."
Jim went into the bathroom and took three children's chewable aspirin.
While he'd been making the decision, it had seemed perfectly reasonable to take it easy. He'd been enjoying the anticipation. But now he wanted it, wanted Blair's lips on him, wanted proof. Blair came into the station and did three quarters of his paperwork for him and made dinner even though it wasn't his night and Jim had to tell him to stop trying so hard, that it was okay, although it wasn't especially.
"Maybe it's a Guide sort of thing that I just need to overcome," Blair said tentatively. "Because you're my Sentinel."
"That's not it."
"What, why?"
"Because Incacha and I—you know."
"I thought you were out defending the tribe."
"Yeah. But during the rainy season everyone pretty much stays home and screws a lot."
Jim wore a tight shirt, finally, and practically posed, leaning against the counter when Blair came home. Blair said,
"Hi," and started to go into his room.
"Wait a minute," Jim said. "Excuse me."
"what?"
"Oh give me a break. Even Simon said something about this goddamn shirt and I thought you were coming to the station today."
"I was busy. I mean, Jim. I was really busy. I'm sorry. I called you," he said, at Jim's indignant expression. "It's a nice shirt. What did Simon say about it?"
"He told me that you couldn't use the cotton/sturdy setting on the dryer for everything."
Blair snorted. "Well it's pretty tight."
"I'm not fricken blind, Sandburg. I know it's tight. I wore it for you, but clearly it didn't work so—"
"Wait, wait. Jim. I'm sorry. I want you, I do. I guess I'm just a little less exhibitionist than I thought I was. I'm kind of weirded out by the level of exposure, you know?"
"well, that's okay."
"no, Jim, it's really not. I've done everything wrong from the beginning and I can't even get the sex right—I want this so much and I'm fucking it up—"
"I mean, it's okay, because I have a solution."
"If this is the tight shirt, then—"
"No, this is plan B."
"Plan B."
"Who's the first girl you kissed, Chief?"
"Tina Clayton. Sixth grade. Truth or dare."
"And you were embarrassed, right?"
"Right, but."
"But it was still pretty sexy, right—you wanted to do it again."
"I guess."
"So," Jim said.
"We're gonna play truth or dare?" Blair said, nonplussed.
"Nope."
"Then—"
"We're gonna get lickered up and play truth or dare," Jim said. He fished a six pack of beer out of the refrigerator and herded Blair into the living room.
"okay," Blair said meekly, and sat down.
"Drink this," Jim said, handing him a beer. "I'm going to go change out of this shirt."
When Jim came back down, Blair handed him a beer. He sat down on the couch next to Blair, who looked at him expectantly.
"ready?" Jim said.
"yup. go for it," Blair said.
"you're not going to tell me this is stupid?"
"It's stupid, Jim," Blair said. "Just go; you're making me nervous."
"okay. Truth or Dare."
"um. Truth," Blair said firmly.
"The whole point of this is to do the Dare."
"It's called Truth or Dare," Blair said pedantically.
"forget it. I'm daring you."
"that's not fair."
"Shut up. You have to kiss me."
"I'm tempted to protest."
"Do it."
"Fine," Blair said. He leaned over and kissed Jim.
"That wasn't long enough."
"You didn't say anything about a time limit."
"Yeah, but I was thinking something more like," and Jim rubbed a thumb up Blair's neck, cradled his head and kissed him, sucking at Blair's tongue.
Blair blinked, and ran his tongue over his lips. "You didn't say that."
"'S'implicit."
"Truth or Dare."
"Dare," Jim said immediately, words practically overlapping. He took a drink of his beer and watched Blair's flushed face above his rumpled t-shirt and said, "you look good like that."
"Kiss me again," Blair said. He reached across and took Jim's beer out of his hand and put it on the coffee table. Then he straightened back up and wrapped his arms around Jim's neck and said, "Jim," before settling his lips on Jim's and opening his mouth. Their stomachs rubbed together through their shirts and Blair stuck a knee between Jim's legs, the kneecap coming right up against his balls, and he gasped and slid down a little and said, "Sandburg, if you decide to have another weird moment of virginal indecision, I'm gonna kill you." but Blair's eyes were heavy and his breath was coming in little catches. He'd had half a beer but he was touching Jim's face clumsily and leaning in for another kiss.
"You want me," Jim asked, lips brushing Blair's.
"Truth," Blair said, "yeah, I want you."
"I want to fuck you," Jim said. "I want to make love to you."
"Um," Blair said,
"No no no no no, Sandburg, no. Shut up," he said, and lifted him up and laid him on his back on the coffeetable and knelt down between his thighs, "I've put up with your shit for weeks now and—"
"I sorry, I was a jerk—"
"If you're really sorry, you'll let me." He shoved his hand into Blair's hair and brought him up for a kiss and Blair gasped against his mouth and kissed him back. He wrapped his legs around Jim's hips and pressed himself against Jim's chest and when Jim pulled back, clutched at his arms and tried to pull him back. "wait a minute," Jim said, and flipped open the buttons on Blair's shirt and pants. "hold on," he said, and shoved Blair's undershirt up under his armpits and kissed his stomach.
"Jim," Blair said, "Jim, I—" Jim rocked back on his knees and said,
"go upstairs."
Blair nodded hastily and scrambled up the stairs, pulling off his clothes on the way. Jim took off his clothes downstairs and followed, reaching the top of the stairs in time to watch Blair pull off his socks. He stepped close behind Blair and licked his neck, sliding an arm around his waist. Blair's spine flexed and curled against his chest and Jim flattened his hand on Blair's stomach, feeling his pulse even there. He slid his hand down and stroked Blair's cock and Blair took a huge stuttering breath but said nothing.
Jim stepped backward and swung Blair around, shoving him up against the wall. He pushed a leg in between Blair's and Blair rubbed his ass against Jim's thigh.
He was not careless with Blair; stretched him slowly, stroked him, kissed his shoulders. Then he fucked Blair for a long time, sliding his hands up along Blair's arms, braced on the wall, and clasping his hands. Blair panted softly, as if to himself, and leaned his head back against Jim's shoulder. He was blushing; Jim could feel the heat of his skin along his chest and neck and Blair lifted one of his hands from the wall and hooked it around Jim's neck. Jim's legs began to hurt from holding himself low enough to really fuck Blair, but it didn't matter and Blair lurched erratically against him and moaned and it might have been more perfect and more romantic but that didn't matter either because he was coming and so was Blair and Blair was saying his name.
"Sorry," he said later.
"what for?"
"pressuring you into it."
"that's okay," Blair said. He pushed his head against Jim's shoulder and Jim lifted his arm to wrap around Blair.
"I shouldn't have."
"So the inimitable Ellison seduction technique leaves a little to the imagination. It's fine."
"I'd watch it, there, Sandburg."
"hmph. why?"
"Because you're this close to a rose strewn boudoir, idiot."
"really?"
"Do you want a rose strewn boudoir?"
"I could get on board for that, actually."
"Okay," Jim said. He pulled the blanket up higher over them and tightened his arms around Blair. Blair obligingly moved closer and yawned.
"You didn't throw that shirt away or anything," Blair said, "right?"
The next morning Jim licked Blair's nipples until he woke up.
"hey," he said, "you still like this?"
"It would be fucked up and repressed to say no, right?" Blair wiggled his shoulders and arched his back slightly.
"I think we've already established that you're both fucked up and repressed," Jim said, but he bent his head over Blair's chest.
"My ass hurts," Blair said. Jim lifted his head. "but it's a good hurt."
"It's the 'my boyfriend has an incredibly large cock' sort of hurt," Jim said. Blair rolled his eyes. "Are you saying I don't have a big dick?"
"Why would I do that?"
"Once again, repressed fucked-upness spring to mind."
"You're enjoying this."
"Well, it's nice to be right." Jim said humbly.
"Yeah," Blair said. "It's still weird, though. The whole thing's weird."
"maybe so."
"It's just gonna take me a while."
"until you take me for granted, you mean."
"yup. And you get all flabby and refuse to take me anywhere."
"well. You got someplace better to be?"
"No."
(end)

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